The Redemption of Angels
by The-Owlet
Summary: Begins immediately after the end of the 2005 movie. No characters belong to me. Reviews are always welcome. Nothing ever happens as you plan it, and sometimes what the heart wants is surprising. COMPLETE
1. Default Chapter

They ran from the opera house and left the mob behind, but in less than an hour, the building was in flames. Raoul was bleeding from several places and had an ugly welt around his neck—he was on the verge of delirium, and Christine was half hysterical, so she made no protest when he reined in their stolen horse at his family's town house. Like the chaos behind them, it too was soon in an uproar. Christine could only stand with her arms wrapped around herself, shivering.

The Chagny servants were very good. After the initial flurry, Raoul was whisked off by his valet and Christine was firmly but kindly taken downstairs. The housekeeper herself clucked over Christine's bruises and scrapes. Her wrist was quite red and painful—it was bound up for her. She was given a proper (modest) nightgown and wrapper, then tucked into a corner of the kitchen with a lap rug and a cup of tea that had a healthy dose of brandy in it. She gagged at the burn but drank it all and was glad that the second cup was plain tea with milk. The servants looked at her curiously but asked no questions, and she was content to sit still and slowly become warm, for her shivers to calm. Her lips were buzzing—she could not keep her fingertips away from her mouth. Time passed, and she was led to a small room in the attics, plain but warm, with a still figure under blankets on a bed against the opposite wall. She laid down gratefully. She was sure that she would not be able to sleep, but she was so tired that her bones ached. She pulled the covers to her chin and sleep took her.

Christine dreamed of fire and song. She dreamed of lips pressed to hers while all the music of Heaven rang in her ears. She dreamed that she was wading through cold water with a rope tied about her waist; just as she reached dry land she was yanked backward and the water closed over her head. She dreamed that she wandered through a labyrinth, unable to find what she had lost and not even knowing what that was.


	2. 2

Erik knew that Giry had betrayed him—there was no other way the boy could have found them. Nonetheless, as the mob smashed his home and the fire spread, he went to find her. She was in her room, bend over a bundle of belongings, sobbing. When he laid a hand on her shoulder, she shrieked.

"You are not dead!" she gasped, and embraced him. There was no time for surprise or reaction. Bad enough that he kept having to thrust away the memory of a kiss.

"You must hurry," he said, hearing smoke and tears in his own voice. "The building is on fire. Your daughter?"

Giry nodded. "Gathering her things. Help me." One large bundle and two smaller ones later, Meg was at the door. She gasped when she saw him, then averted her eyes.

"Good girl," Giry said. Erik tied the large bundle to his back and carried another. He had nothing but his own tattered clothing, not even a mask.

Giry knew all the alleyways and dark paths as well as he did, so he was content to follow, even as the city behind them glowed orange with the Opéra's burning. He thought he should mourn, everything having collapsed around him. He thought with a pang of his organ and his scores, but mostly it was as if his head was stuffed with cotton wool. He couldn't hold on to any thought. Meg stumbled—she was still in her toe shoes—and he caught her. He could have counted on one hand, with fingers left over, the number of women he had touched in his life, but this he hardly noticed. "I'm tired," he thought, and it seemed as if he had never had any rest, never would.

It was several blocks, or halfway across the city, or a year later that they stopped, and he waited outside in the street while Giry went inside the small inn and got a pair of rooms. He tried to shake his hair into his face and be invisible. Three bedraggled persons were no match for the gossip of the opera house burning to the ground—his worries were groundless. The bed was lumpy, but it seemed clean, and he sank onto it with relief. He still could not make himself think.

There was a soft knock at the door. Erik was startled to see Meg on the other side when he answered. She held a small white object in her hand. It was his mask.


	3. 3

Christine awoke strangely comfortable—so much so that she lay quietly until she remembered where she was. Her dreams faded as the sun rose, and she had slept hard for much of the day. The excellent servants continued their kindness. She found plenty of water in the ewer and gave herself as much of a bath as she could. A plain dark dress had been laid on the chair at the end of the bed. The dress was a touch too small and the shoes much too big, but everything was clean and serviceable. She made her way back down to the kitchen.

The cook, Mme. Henri, was a motherly, gossipy sort of person. Christine had wandered in after luncheon and before preparations for supper were demanding, so it was the perfect time to receive some tea, plenty of fresh bread with marmalade, and all the gossip of the past night. The opera house was completely destroyed. Given that this meant that she was unemployed and homeless, Christine took the news well. In the warm kitchen, with kind green eyes staring at her, it was hard to worry. She thought that she must have some sort of screen between her mind and the world—she felt preternaturally calm. Raoul was in bed with a fever, but the doctor had said that he was not in any danger. Mme. Henri did not say whether he had been asking to see her, and Christine did not ask to see him. As kind as they were, that she had been housed among the servants told her all that she needed to know about his family. She sighed into her teacup and brushed away a tear. For four months, she had lived a dream. She and Raoul had play-acted that love was enough to get by in the world. She had been nearly a star, and he was her handsome suitor. Their friendship had started during childhood, so it made sense that they should have a courtship of playing pretend, secret and innocent, of feather-light kisses and bad sonnets.

Perhaps she would regret it later. In the meantime, she felt quite resigned. She drank her tea and sat quietly in the kitchen. The housekeeper came to ask after her midafternoon. She too was very civil, if busy, but she did find Christine a better-fitting pair of shoes.

"I hardly know what to do with you, child," she said.

Christine sympathized. She didn't know what to do with herself. She had a very little money that Raoul had persuaded her to put in a bank, unlike the other Opéra members, who had a variety of inventive hiding places for their earnings. It was said that the costume mistress sewed all of her money into her corset. Regardless, it was a small account. She knew nothing other than singing and ballet. Surely there must be a place where she could go and find work. The housekeeper patted her shoulder and left to continue her duties.

Christine had another night of difficult dreams. She was surrounded by velvet—it was achingly soft but cloying, and she could not breathe. She was in water again, swimming toward a shoreline that never got any closer. She was in her dressing room at the Opéra, searching desperately for … something. She woke with ears on her face, deep in the night. Mariette, one of the under-housemaids, snored gently in the other bed.

In the darkness, the veil that had protected her was drawn away, and the full dangers of her situation crowded around her. A star of the opera might have the faint hope of marrying a Vicomte—a penniless orphan had none. She did not imagine that she would be allowed to intrude on the Chagny hospitality for long. His parents were abroad, but surely word of Raoul's illness would bring them home quickly. If she could find M. Reyer, he might giver her a reference, and perhaps Mme. Giry. No one else would. It was not her fault, exactly, that the opera house was in ruins, but she was at the center of it, and she knew the gossip would not be kind. This meant that the major houses—London, Rome, Berlin, Lisbon—would be closed to her. "I must never think," she told herself, "of fame. I must think only of how to survive," She was nearly nineteen years old. Better to focus on singing than on dance. She knew that she did not have the temperament to be a ballet mistress, and her voice would last longer than her legs. She would have to think of where to go.

She felt herself skirting around darker issues, more dangerous questions. She thought about where to buy toe shoes and whether there was money to be made singing liturgical music. She wondered whether she would be allowed to keep the clothes she had been given and how much clothes would cost. She marveled at how little she knew, how sheltered she had been. She had always been under someone's care.

"How different," she thought, "from him." Then all the doors were opened, and it was more than she could think of in words. Her mind was filled with image and emotion, echoes of a strange music and the taste of a strange mouth. Christine cried herself back to sleep. It was a heavy sleep, without dreaming.


	4. 4

They were refugees together, the Girys and the Phantom. For the first few days they regrouped—they slept a great deal, ate rather less, and annoyed the servants by each asking for a bath. Erik roused himself sufficiently to realize that Giry's resources were strained and withdrew enough money from one of his widespread accounts to cover their expenses. The three of them sat together, largely silent. Meg was the first recover and become restless. She took over their care, heading out in the mornings and returning at night with her arms full of packages. Soon they had enough clothing to seem like respectable people instead of vagabonds, and she started to talk about the future. Erik would raise his eyes to Giry's and see a weariness to match his own. Much went unspoken between them, but he knew that she maintained her care for him, her sympathy. Regardless, he knew that he had brought everything down on them. He had been too arrogant. He had been insane.

In his own small room, Erik could not hide from his own thoughts. He would have raged with self-loathing, except that it seemed his very soul was exhausted. Christine was not at fault. She was so young. "And I am an idiot," he thought, staring into his shaving mirror. He had convinced himself that she belonged to him, as if she was an object to be possessed. She had broken his heart on the rooftop, when she declared her love for that boy, when she refused the darkness. So for three months he had been in a fever of hurt. He had sat underground, composing in a rage. He would sit at his organ until his hands bled, until he ran out of ink, until he fainted from lack of sleep or hunger. By the New Year's ball, he was thin, mad, and desperate. Christine had been the very definition of loveliness. There was a moment when he had felt almost gentle, until he saw the ring hanging around her neck. There were so many words to regret, so many stupid actions that would haunt him forever. He thought briefly of turning himself in to the police, but his instinct for survival was too great. Better to wander the earth in penance. He had brought about the destruction of his own home and had taken away the livelihood of nearly a hundred people. At the very least, he would care for Giry and Meg. That would be something.

Christine would marry Chagny, of course. She deserved happiness, and Erik knew he had no talent for joy. He swore to himself that he would never trouble her again—he would let her go. He told himself sternly: "I will let her go."


	5. 5

On the second day, Christine was again left to fend for herself, and Raoul was still sick in bed. She thought that her acceptance and her lack of questions had gained her favor among the upper servants. She didn't know how that would do her good, but it couldn't hurt. Yet she was used to a great deal of activity, to long rehearsals, and the stillness quickly chafed. She knew nothing of cooking, but Mme. Henri had proved her kindness, so Christine was not afraid to ask for something to do. Washing dishes and peeling potatoes were hardly so glamorous as leading roles, but it kept her busy. She worked hard and was very glad to sleep that night without dreams.

The next day, she was scrubbing pots when Raoul burst into the kitchen. He was pale and his eyes over-bright, but he looked well. When he swept her into his arms, Christine fought back tears. With her head laid against his chest, it was almost possible to believe in happy endings.

"What are you doing down here?" he asked, and then, before she had a chance to answer, "I can't believe they put you downstairs with the servants!" He hugged her again. "You're all right. You're all right."

He made her stop cleaning, over her own protests and Mme. Henri's smile. So she was with Raoul in the beautiful sitting room, drinking tea, when the Chagnys came home. The Comtesse cried out and ran to her son. Tears stood in her eyes as she examined him, then flung her arms around him once she was satisfied that he was whole. The Comte stood back, quietly watching everything. Christine became horribly aware of her plain, ill-fitting dress.

Like their servants, like their son, the Comte and Comtesse were very kind to her. Raoul's mother pressed her hand warmly. They both agreed readily that she should move from the servants' quarters into a guest room, although Christine protested. At that, both parents glanced at her sharply and, she thought, with approval. Raoul, as ever, was full of grand ideas. His version of events at the Opéra was highly colored. It was very complimentary of her and damning of the Angel. Christine felt uncomfortable. The Comtesse praised her for her bravery, and the Comte declared the whole business improper. In Raoul's version, her tears convinced the Phantom to let them go. It was curious, but probably wise, that he left out the kiss.

Raoul talked a great deal, his mother somewhat less, and the Comte and Christine hardly at all. Christine thought that she was best off in silence. These people could do much to hurt her if she offended them. She knew very little of how aristocrats behaved; they seemed kind, but she was too tired, her nerves still too raw, to trust them. Thus, she found herself crying, "No!" when Raoul abruptly changed the subject and insisted on setting a wedding date. Three blue-eyed gazes—one cool, one surprised, and one hurt—rested on her. She dropped her eyes to her fingers, twisted together in her lap.

"Forgive me," she said, trying to pull her thoughts to order. "It's just … I mean …" and then Raoul was kneeling in front of her, his warm hands wrapped around hers. His poor dear face was so heartbroken. "This is too soon, Raoul. I have been so frightened for so long, and now I am without a home"—he opened his mouth to protest, so she said more firmly, "without a home, Raoul, and every possession in the world gone. I hardly know what to think or how to feel. It's too big a decision to make right now."

Raoul told her that he would think for her, that he would take care of her and that she needn't worry, until his mother stopped him. She drew him away and stuck a cup of tea in his hand.

"She's quite right," the Comtesse said, and handed Christine some tea as well. "The two of you have had a horrid fright, and you, son, are still not well. I can see it in your face. You both need quiet and time to compose your thoughts. Come now. This has been a terrible ordeal. You must have time to recover." Christine felt as if she had passed a test, but not necessarily one she would have wanted.


	6. 6

Thanks so much to my reviewers! It means alot to me that there are people enjoying this story.

Please note: The years in which the movie is set (1870-1871) were full of massive political upheaval in France that would have essentially made the story impossible. While I have striven to keep many details period correct, I have chucked politics and war right out the window in the interest of the story.

* * *

Meg's restlessness drove Erik and her mother. He withdrew more money and they moved from the inn to a furnished flat. It was plain but respectable, and they even hired a girl to do the cleaning and a bit of cooking. Giry passed Erik off as her brother. He was satisfied with that. It was a good enough description of their strange relationship, and having to call him Uncle would cure Meg of any romantic notions. He had no confidence in his personal charms, but he knew that Meg had read far too many novels. Giry gave him her maiden name, Renouille. He had never had a surname before. He rather liked it.

Giry seemed beaten somehow by their adventure and was content to sit in the parlor. Erik was so unused to company that he too remained home most days. Meg quickly found work at a day school as a dancing teacher. Erik brooded a great deal. He continued to mull over all of the mistakes he had made, all of the ways in which his selfishness had ruined everything he had touched. He remembered the sensation of Piangi struggling under his hands, and Erik vowed that he had taken his last life. He has always thought of killing as a necessity, stemming from that first death at the carnival. Surely that had not been murder. Grenalle was a base monster—Erik's life had been full of not only humiliation and starvation but also of pain. Grenalle had regularly whipped Erik like a dog, had beaten him unconscious for no reason that the boy could ever determine. Beyond that were worse abuses—dark, horrid things that he had no words for and only glimpses of memories. He did not try to suss these out. His grip on sanity felt tenuous enough.

Besides, none of this made up for Piangi. Buquet he had meant to scare, not kill, but he had never once thought of a nonlethal means of replacing the tenor. Now he thought of dozens, from blows to the head to any number of drugs. At the time, Erik had felt like Achilles, bent on slaughtering the entire world until no one was left but him and Christine. All thought had been on his desire, his music, the fulfillment of all his dreams of the past three years. He had been entirely insane. He sat bolt upright in his chair, and a chill ran through him. Not once had he considered what Christine had wanted. Every waking minute he had burned with love for her, but that love gave no thought to her happiness. Perhaps he was the "devil's child" after all. Certainly he was a wretch. Even she, the object of all his adoration, had been someone to be bullied and manipulated.

And then she had kissed him. Erik could pinpoint that as the moment of his rebirth into sanity. "God give me courage to show you that you are not alone," she had said, and the touch of her lips had blown the world apart. His first kiss, and almost certainly his last, but it taught him all that he had never known of passion. It taught him all the ways in which he had been wrong about love. She would have stayed. This realization was what made him let her go. Knowing that she would have sacrificed her life for him was enough. Still, it would've been easier if he had found a way to not survive the fire.

He longed to be able to talk to Christine about it and to thank her. He watched for the banns to be posted in the papers. Perhaps, once she was married, one short letter would be safe. But days turned to weeks, and no announcement was made.


	7. 7

Days turned to weeks, and Christine felt her life to be very strange. She was given a lovely guest room and a small but pretty wardrobe. The servants were more aloof but civil, and the Comtesse was distantly kind. Yet she was not invited to join them for dinner parties or outings, and the inactivity was driving her mad. Raoul was often out of the house with his father. She was desperate for news from the Opéra, but the Comtesse waved her questions away, and Raoul told her that "all that" was behind her.

When nearly two weeks had gone by, Raoul sat with her at tea and said, "Tell me what has been wrong, darling. I've been miserable going about town without you, and I'm so sorry you've been ill."

Her heart sank. It was a mystery solved at least, but she felt that she and Raoul had been played like fools. She didn't know whether his parents were being more kind or cruel by drawing things out and giving him hope. She supposed that they were at least generous in not having thrown her into the street. She squeezed his hand.

"I will be fine, Raoul. It's just that all my fright has left me rather fragile."

He smiled at her sweetly and kissed her. "You must get strong soon," he said, and his gaze had an intent behind it that reminded her of her Angel. "I'm becoming rather impatient to marry you." She hoped that the turn of her head seemed coy than sad.

She was not surprised the next day when the Comtesse came to her and said, "We have all worried for your health, my dear. I wonder whether it would do you good to spend some time in the country?"

"Ah," Christine thought. "It begins." She no longer feared that they would actively damage her reputation if she rebelled, but she could recognize in their deft manipulations that they had finally decided for their son. Better to not fight. Any arguments on her part would merely be painful, and she was tired. The future yawned in front of her, huge and unknowable, and its weight wore on her. "Madame, I think you might be right," she said.

The Comtesse sighed heavily, as if she had been holding her breath. "I am glad," she said, and patted Christine's hand before she left the room.

Apparently every noble family had an abundance of country cousins. It was quickly decided that Christine would to go Aunt Adelaide, who lived very quietly four hours away by horseback—far enough, Christine thought ruefully, to make a one-day trip inconvenient. Raoul rarely had two free days together. His father kept him busy. Raoul complained bitterly, and she comforted him as best she could without feeling like a hypocrite.

She had been able to discover nothing of who had survived the Opéra fire. When she thought of her Angel, despair was a sensation of falling inside her chest. She tried to push the feeling aside as much as possible. Surely, someone must have lived. Meg was young, fit, and not at all given to melancholy. Christine thought that she must have escaped. She wrote a letter. The morning that she left for the country, she rose early and tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen. She hugged Mme. Henri and thanked her for all her kindness. Mme. Henri promised to set the stable boy to the task of finding Marguerite Giry.


	8. 8

Mme. Giry had spent many days sitting in a chair, staring at the fire in the grate. All of their clothing was new, so she didn't even have a stocking to darn, and she had not yet bought any new knitting needles and yarn. Her heart was as wrung out and hollow as when Jules had died. Jules had not known about Erik, the man she now called her brother. Like a brother, he had held her hand when Jules died. While everyone else had counseled her to be strong and stoic for four-year-old Meg, Erik had allowed her to cry. He had sat next to her silently and simply let her be. She thought back over their strange relationship—a mixture of pity, fear, and care. His was a brilliant mind warped by his terrible childhood and the ensuing decades of solitude. He had done the best he could, and she had done as little as possible to help him. "I should have borne my responsibilities better," she told herself.

It was late afternoon, and Erik had come to sit with her. In an hour or two, Meg would be home, and she would fill their rooms with talk. This time was silent, like that dreadful time before, except that he did not hold her hand. She smiled at the thought. He would likely jump away from her if she reached for him. His poor wounded heart.

"Erik," she said, and cleared her throat. When he turned to her, she noted how thin he was, and how much smaller he looked in his own light-brown hair and without his flamboyant clothing. Still, the mask was unsettling, even after so many years. Yet she was always surprised that his fierce grey eye could be so much more compelling than all that white leather.

"Yes?" he said wryly, and Mme. Giry realized that she had been staring. She cleared her throat again. Having started, she did not know how to go on.

"I owe you an apology," she said, finally, and that sculpted eyebrow rose. She had always thought it a great tragedy that a man so disfigured should be so very handsome on the other side. No wonder he raged so against God.

For all that Christine Daae had driven him to murderous haste, she knew him to be a patient man. He was now, as she composed her thoughts. Finally, the words spilled out of her, how she had done him wrong to remain to silent, to not teach him better about people, that she had left him so often alone. The more she talked, the more astonished he looked, until finally he nearly shouted, "Antoinette!" He had not called her by her Christian name in a decade. She clapped her mouth shut.

"Surely you are not trying to take responsibility for this … disaster … upon yourself." She realized that she had been doing just that. "You cannot. I alone am to blame." His argument was very persuasive, as he talked of his selfishness and his madness. He had seemed mad, by the end. Still.

"Erik, no. I am as much to blame as you." He rejected this outright, and she protested. By the time Meg returned, they were still railing at one another, but good-naturedly, and Meg thought that they both looked more like living people than they had since the fire.

She held out to them a letter. "It's from Christine," she said.


	9. 9

Aunt Adelaide was, unsurprisingly, a spinster, quite old, and a little dim. However, she was delighted to be of service to her rich cousins, and she was very sweet to Christine. She let slip the first day that the Comte had sent money for Christine's keep, so Christine was able to immediately dismiss Aunt's idea that she would continue as always and spend the Comte's money only on herself. The prospect of good, strong tea and beef more than once a week proved enough of a temptation, and Christine was thoroughly satisfied that the money would go straight to the household. She still had her own little account in the bank, if things got desperate.

In the meantime, Aunt was all friendliness, and Christine was happy to impose upon her for as long as she would be allowed. Aunt was not so poor as to be desperate, so she lived in a sort of genteel shabbiness. Christine was well used to shabbiness—much less so to gentility. She had always been careful of her manners, but Aunt was full of the sort of useful advice that would serve her well in any sort of good society. She learned the use of some of the more arcane pieces of silverware and how to arrange flowers. Aunt was very quietly horrified by Christine's lack of needle skills, so she also learned to knit and embroider, to darn her stockings such that they did not look quite so much as if each repair was a badly healed wound.

At night, as she braided her hair for bed, Christine often smiled over the irony that she was learning the sorts of skills that would make her a more suitable wife for Raoul. Still, she was glad to learn. As a singer, she would always be a member of the demimonde, but the trappings of respectability could only be welcome. It did not escape her that she was bothered relatively little by the knowledge that she would not marry Raoul. Mostly, she felt sad for him, that he did not yet know it and still dreamed of their happiness. Then she would be struck with guilt over her coldness. Surely she should be more miserable? She cried now and then, but very little. More often, she enjoyed her days, that they were a sort of remedial finishing school.

She knew that she loved Raoul. At first, she thought that she remained cut off from her own feelings, that at any moment she would be miserable. But as the days went by and her mind turned over the matter in the background while she embroidered a very ugly cushion and joined Aunt in the garden to pretend to trim the flowers, Christine began to understand herself. She did love him, but it was more like the love of their young friendship than anything else. She felt a pang for Raoul when she realized this and remembered the passion with which he sometimes gazed at her. She had wanted for him to protect her, to save her from her own fear and darkness. Now that she was away from the melodrama of the Opéra, her feelings had sorted themselves out, and she could think of giving Raoul up with relatively little pain. He too, she thought, had been caught up in the idea of saving her. He would not suffer very long—she hoped.

The Angel was another matter entirely. Christine was sure he must be dead, and this only added to the pain and confusion that surrounded her thoughts of him. She tried to gently move these thoughts aside, but she continued to dream of labyrinths, of things lost, and of music and kisses intertwined. She often awoke with tears on her cheeks or with her fingers pressed to her mouth.

Aunt knew none of this. To her mind, Christine was a friend of the family with a weak constitution, and she had been entrusted with the strengthening of this sweet child. Certainly it was strange that she had been educated so ill, but Aunt thought she must always have been delicate.

"Still," she said to Christine, one night after the girl had been singing over her embroidery, "your voice is like that of one of God's own angels."


	10. 10

A letter from Christine. Erik sat utterly still and felt the eyes of both women on him. He wanted to rip the letter from Meg's hand. He wanted to run from the room. But he would not let himself fall into madness again. The letter would be a wedding invitation, of course. He would know that she was happy.

"May I hear it?" he asked, and he did not miss Meg's glance to her mother, nor Giry's slight nod. He smiled to himself. Had his control always been a sham? Regardless. Meg read the letter.

It was astonishing—a bare ten lines, most of which were hopes for Meg's and her mother's safety. And then the shocking bit: "I am going to the country," she wrote. "I'm not exactly sure where. As kind as they are, I don't think that they'll let me marry Raoul. If this finds you, darling Meg, please send a reply through Mme. Henri, the Chagny cook. Oh, I hope to find you!"

Erik and Giry sat back and stared at one another. Not marry the boy? What would become of her, poor girl? He could not imagine what would have happened. He had to remind himself to breathe calmly.

"Bah," Giry said after a moment. "I should have known." Erik stared at her in surprise.

"What do you mean, Maman?" Meg asked.

Giry scowled. "It's the parents, of course. Oh Meg, you and she were bound to learn that lesson soon, but I did hope it would be different for poor Christine. And for you," she added, tapping her daughter's cheek. She sighed. "But the world is what it is, and Christine was an opera singer who is now penniless, and her Vicomte is nobility. I'm sure that if he wanted her for a mistress it would be fine"—Erik gripped the arms of his chair so fiercely that the wood creaked—"but marriage? In all my years, I have seen that happen once, and it did not end happily." Meg made a miserable little sound in the back of her throat. "She was a chorus girl too, and the man in question was barely noble. He was a Chevalier whose father had bought his title. But society is not kind to usurpers. She was snubbed everywhere they went. After a year, she gave birth to a stillborn son and followed him quickly. Poor girl. I lost my taste for gentlemen after that."

"When was that, Maman?"

"I was seventeen, my dear, and she was my good friend. They made her give us all up, you know, after the wedding. But she still wrote to me sometimes. I think it was a relief to her to follow her dead son." Giry stared hard into the fire. "Her name was Jeanne." Then she shook herself slightly and smiled down at her daughter. "Once I stopped looking for flash, I began to see goodness, which was how I first noticed your father."

Erik was amazed. He had known none of this. When she was seventeen, he had still been a boy, living on a heap of pilfered sacks and curtains, reading any book he could nab and still painfully teaching himself to read music, to write, and to understand the set designs that were his door to architecture. He remembered dimly that Giry had visited him first more often than usual, then less, and that he had responded to missing her by ever more study. He had worn a rag tied around his face since he took up residence in the cellars—it was during this period that he constructed his first masks. The search for materials led him upstairs to the Opéra and sparked his habit of lurking in the flies. He had thought that he knew all the workings of his home, that he had a keen eye for detail. Yet he had missed all of this. He had never once thought to ask Giry what lay behind the sadness or joy in her face or to be curious about her thoughts. He told her this and tried to ignore the open shock on Meg's face.

Giry smiled at him. "This is just as we argued earlier, is it not? You were a child—we were both children. Besides, had anyone once been interested in your own thoughts?" Erik shook his head. "So it is no surprise that you did not think of it." The weight of all he did not know seemed enormous.

"Has anyone still?" Meg asked. Erik stared at her. "I mean—even now, has anyone asked you such things?"

Erik opened his mouth, then closed it. Giry was a very picture of consternation. He opened his mouth again, closed it again. He had kept Giry at a distance with his bullying; he had kept Christine away through sheer admiration. He had told himself that the mirror tricks and mystery were part of a scheme of seduction, when really they were to protect him against rejection.

It was a sight neither woman had ever expected to see: the Phantom laughed.


	11. 11

As she had expected, Raoul visited rarely, and his visits obviously frustrated him—there was always some urgent business that would call him away, and Aunt's sense of propriety was such that she never left them alone. He fairly quivered with irritation.

"I don't know why my father is so insistent," he grumbled one day as he escorted them back from church. "All this business. It's not as if he's feeble and going to die any time soon. I don't see why I can't have a little leisure to court my fiancée."

Christine could only smile sadly at him and squeeze his arm. While she had been at the Opéra, they had had much time alone together, which had been filled with kisses and romantic daydreaming. She was quite sure that the boundaries of decency had been breached a couple of times. That he was now able to kiss no more than her hand clearly annoyed him. Because she had "lost" her ring, Raoul was desperate to give her a new one, and his mother's "forgetfulness" in producing one from her jewel box was another source of complaint. Christine felt guilty for her collusion in his parents' plan, especially when Raoul was standing next to her, tapping his riding crop against the side of his boot and scowling at the horizon. But the more weeks passed, the more tangible her relief. She realized that, had she married him, at some point she would have been the one scowling toward the distance. He was a dear friend, but he did not inspire passion in her, not like—well. That thought was tucked neatly away.

Raoul did write every day. She kept her own letters light in tone, describing the books she was reading and the dear, silly things that Aunt said. His letters were by turns long lists of the ways in which he was kept busy and darker rants. She learned a great deal about him from those letters. He would have married her, she thought, if his parents had allowed it, but his sense of duty was so strong that she thought his heartbreak would be of short duration. She was comforted by the thought that he would be philosophical.

They let her stay with Aunt for three months. Raoul had been able to visit only four times. Just the week before, she had received a note from Meg. Her relief and joy quite overcame her, and she cried herself into a headache, whereupon Aunt put her to bed and clucked over her delicate nature. The note was curiously short, but she and her mother were alive, living comfortably, and Meg was teaching dance to the daughters of hopeful bourgeoisie. Christine was unfamiliar with the address, but she sent a letter full of questions, as well as a note of thanks to Mme. Henri.

The Comte de Chagny visited the day after her letter was sent. Aunt was entirely cowed by her rich cousin—when he insisted on speaking to Christine alone, her protest was limited to a sigh. Christine stood looking at the floor, twisting her fingers together.

He looked at her for a long moment, then said, "Sit down, child." She sat. Aunt had left the tea things out, so Christine refreshed both their cups. While they had a task, her hands would not shake.

"Cousin Adelaide tells me that you have had a very quiet time here," he said at last.

Christine smiled into her cup. "Aunt has been kind," she said. "I must thank you, monsieur, for sending me here. I have learned a great deal, and I do think that the quiet must have done me good."

The Comte had bushy white eyebrows—they were rather comical, lifted in surprise. "Learned?"

So Christine told him of her embroidery lessons, that she could not carry on a simple conversation in old-fashioned German, and that she was learning to enjoy poetry.

The Comte was obviously startled. "I would not have imagined you to be interested in such things."

Christine turned her cup around a couple of times. "For a woman in my situation, every shred of respectability is helpful."

The Comte nodded. "That is very sensible of you." Their conversation was full of long pauses—she thought that he must be nearly as uncomfortable as she was, and she wished that temperament and propriety would allow her to speak plainly to him, as she might have with Mme. Giry.

"I once heard your father play," he was finally, and Christine was too surprised to cry. "He was a true virtuoso." She realized with a shock that his eyes held pity. It looked strange in his stern face.

"Thank you, monsieur. You are very good to say so."

The Comte laid down his teacup. "You have surprised me at every turn, Mlle. Daae. I am not … unacquainted with dancers and chorus girls, and I must say that you comport yourself with a great deal of gentility." She took a shaky breath. "Moreover, since the scandal at the Opéra, it has seemed to my wife and me that you are aware of the realities of your situation and that you accept what must be."

This was true, and she was resigned to it, but the conversation was still difficult. She nodded, but tears stood in her eyes. The Comte went so far as to lay his hand briefly upon hers.

"Please understand, my child, that our objection is not to your person. We have been very gratified by your grace and discretion, and certainly you are very lovely."

He paused, and Christine thought that it must be very infrequently that he found himself searching for words. She decided that it might be wise to say something sensible, even through her tears.

"I am sure that Raoul's—the Vicomte's—affection for me has much to do with our childhood friendship," she said, and the Comte smiled with approval.

"That is very true," he said. "Children are never aware of the constraints of adult life."

"So perhaps," she said, and it was agony to do so, "his suffering will be brief." There. She had said it. She felt as if she had been freed from a great burden. The Comte sighed.

"My dear, you are very good." Then he kindly looked away while she had a short cry.

"What will you do?" he asked gently, once she had composed herself. "My son has said that you were a dancer before you were a singer."

"I had much rather sing," Christine said.

"Very good. That is a more respectable profession." His pause was uncomfortable. "Given the circumstances, do you plan to remain in Paris?" Oh, how was she able to bear this?

"I think not," she said, and pretended not to notice his visible relief. "Because of the scandal, I feel sure that the major houses will be closed to me. I have not given much thought yet as to where I will go. I shall have to find some work in Paris for a little while, until I have enough money to go abroad."

The Comte sighed heavily and rose from his chair. He walked to the window and stared out for a moment at the gorgeous summer day.

"When I came here today, I did not entirely know what to expect, "he said at last. "I had thought that it might be necessary to appeal to your more … avaricious nature." This was mildly offensive. "I see now that I was entirely wrong, of course." He sat back down and took her hand. "I can see that this is painful to you, and I am very grateful for your sacrifice, both for my sake and my son's. Please allow me to make a gift of the money I have brought. I beg you to take it for my sake, Mademoiselle. I would be more comfortable if I were to know that my son's childhood friend was not in any danger."

It was a very pretty speech, and Christine was sensible enough to realize that this, too, was in his best interest—she would go abroad sooner if she could afford it. She did not feel at all greedy. This was a matter of survival. She said yes. The Comte paid her several more compliments, which she thought that he meant. He summoned Aunt Adelaide and arranged Christine's departure for Paris the next day. Aunt was shocked but too well bred to ask questions. It was not until the Comte left and she was alone in her room that Christine looked at the bank draft. To a girl used to living on the barest pittance, it was a staggering amount. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed. All the fright and uncertainty of the past months flooded her at once, and she wept for dreams laid aside, for childhood romances ended, and for sheer relief that she would not starve.


	12. 12

Erik would never have admitted to hope, but there was a sense of lightness after Christine's letter and the conversation that followed. He felt that he was finally coming to understand himself and that each kernel of self-knowledge was a step further away from madness. He became aware of just how little he knew of kindness and set about to learn with the single-mindedness that had served him so well with every other subject that had caught his interest. It was like learning a language. He learned rather more than he wanted about the female hierarchy at Meg's school, and their little maid grew less afraid of him. He learned to speak to Giry of the things in his heart, of the madness that had driven him during the last months at the Opéra (although not of the final night). He wished that he had been able to speak to Christine this way, comfortably and quietly. He hoped to be able to tell her one day of his regrets.

He bought a violin, pens, and paper, and got back to his music. He missed the organ, but there was no space for a keyboard in their small flat. It had been many years since he had spent much time on strings, so there was the pleasure of novelty. He forced himself to do his own shopping, to go out in daylight when he needed to walk out the problems in a piece. He found that he had little to be afraid of, which surprised him. One of his deepest fears had always been recapture, so he had tried to spend as little time as possible out in the world. But the streets were very different for a tall, well-dressed man in an imposing mask than they had been for a hungry child with a marred face. He carried himself with authority and was met with deference. This, too, released something in him that had always been tightly drawn.

It was with great curiosity that he watched himself change. Even his compositions were different. He found himself writing shorter pieces—sonatinas and mere songs—that were less complex and more pleasing to the ear than what he had written before. He realized how much of his former life had been permeated by fear—of discovery, of recapture, of rejection, of loss of control. His games of manipulation had been meant to keep the Opéra denizens as fearful as he. Living with women was also schooling of a most interesting sort. He had never exactly thought of Giry as a woman. To him, women had always been great mysteries, with Christine at the pinnacle of both beauty and inscrutability.

Erik, for all that his physical self was so repulsive, had always been a person of great sensuality. He considered it penance for all his sins that he was trapped in flesh of such hunger and yet that no one would ever want to touch. As a younger man, he had not been able to resist the temptation of his secret doors and hiding places and had spied shamelessly on everyone, in particular the ballet corps. Given that they were theatre folk and therefore not very concerned with propriety, he had seen enough sex to think that he rather knew what was going on and that he resented missing out.

Now, living in close quarters with them every day, Erik found himself taking women down off a pedestal and thinking for the first time of them as human beings. He had given very few people credit for humanity—he had tended to think of them as either obstacles or providers of whatever he wanted, be it money, paper, or a bottle of wine with an interesting label. He thought with shame of how many Christmases he had ruined by pilfering gifts. The more he thought back, the more he thought of himself as a willful child, treating the Opéra and its members as his own dollhouse. Would his life be long enough to allow him to make up for the harm he had caused?

He paid attention. He learned that Meg missed a certain species of hair ribbon that had been lost in the fire and tracked it down for her, although by the time he was in the third modiste's shop, he was so tired of fripperies that he nearly reverted to his old ways. He also bought himself a decent pair of gloves while he was out. One could never have too many. He discovered that Aimée, the maid, looked the way she did because her former employer had forbidden her any food but bread and milk, and she had carried this rule with her. She was still enough in awe of him that he made Giry tell her to eat actual food. He tried to get Giry to talk to him about her sadness, in the hopes that she would rouse herself. No one had known that she ever helped him, and she was still young enough that surely inaction would harm her.

"I will never forgive myself, Antoinette, if you let this turn you into an old woman." She waved her hand at him and grumbled, but he could tell by the twist of her mouth that she was pleased.

It was all very quiet and comfortable. Erik grew used to company and also more content in his own skin. It amazed him to think that he—the Opéra Ghost—had friends. He could no longer hang onto his old view of the world as a place to be shunned, to struggle against. He was learning to be peaceful, and rather than quelling his creative instinct, he worked harder than ever.

He had set up a drafting table under the parlor window and taken to working there, so that he could listen to the click of Giry's knitting needles or her banter with Meg in the evenings. Meg had been trying to find a dance school for herself but had been disgusted by the quality of instruction. Meg rattled on for a quarter of an hour, Giry clucking her agreement, until Erik could stand it no longer and rumbled at them.

"You should open a school, Antoinette." Meg was wild for the idea, and Giry's protests were becoming quite half-hearted, when there was a bustle in the passageway. Footsteps flew along the corridor, and the last voice he ever expected to hear again cried out from the doorway, "Meg! Madame!"

He turned from his desk, and there she was. The country had done her good—she had gained weight and color, and there was more true joy in her smile than he had ever seen. Giry glanced at him, but Erik sat very still. It was after she had hugged both women that she noticed him, and the color and joy both drained away.

"God," Christine said, staring. "My God."


	13. 13

Aunt Adelaide, in her goodness, rose early enough to meet Christine for breakfast. She was by turns full of compliments and tears, and she made Christine promise to write.

"But of course I will, Aunt," Christine said. "I will never forget how good you have been to me."

They had a tiny battle over the ugly cushion, which Christine won by persuading Aunt to keep it as a memento. She rather suspected that this was what Aunt wanted. Aunt also confided, a little breathlessly, that Cousin Charles was going to continue her allowance, for which Christine was very glad.

"Oh, Aunt! Then you must put in the new lilac bushes." The little old lady was so happy at her new comfort and so sad to see her companion go that she was all a-flutter, and Christine wished that she could pack Aunt up and take her along.

"I promise to write often," she said as she stepped into the carriage. "And I won't forget to keep my stitches even." Aunt stood by the gate and waved her handkerchief for as long as Christine could see her.

It seemed as if the hard parts were over. The Opéra was behind her, Raoul was behind her, and she could, for the first time in her life, make her own choices. It would be a difficult decision, with the whole world open to her. "I could go to Russia!" she thought to herself with a little thrill, "or as far as America!" Surely in America they would not begrudge her a little scandal. She had several pangs for Raoul during the course of the journey, but no regrets. Perhaps at some point—once he was married, or when they were both old enough to be beyond harm—they could be friends again. But it was hard for her to brood. It was the best kind of adventure, she thought, when one had enough money to feel safe about it.

In the meantime, she was going home. She had Meg's letter in her reticule—she would arrive without warning, but she felt sure of her welcome. How surprised they would be! And if they were somehow in dire circumstances, well: she could help. While they had been ballet rats, Meg and Christine had often walked arm in arm through the fashionable streets, staring into shop windows and dreaming of the days when they would be able to actually buy something for themselves. Even if it was a foolish waste of her resources, Christine would take them both shopping. She grinned at the thought.

One of the horses threw a shoe late morning, so it was not until early evening that the carriage drew into the neighborhood where the Girys were living. She was pleased by it—that it was a series of tidy streets with well-kept lamps spoke well of their circumstances. Here was another heartbreak avoided. Her two bags were small enough that she carried them herself up the stairs, which were narrow but brightly lit. Her friends had not been suffering. The maid who answered the door looked a bit like a scarecrow, but then Christine heard Meg's voice and she ran down the hallway toward it. There they were—healthy and whole, and Christine felt that she would burst with joy at seeing them.

A flash of white in the corner drew her eye, and the floor lurched under her feet. Not dead at all, but sitting calmly, impossibly, in this room with a quill in his hand, staring at her warily as he had once before. That time, she had pulled away his mask. Not dead after all. "God," she said. "My God."

There was a pause that seemed to last for hours. She was so glad to be standing in the doorway. She remembered his eyes, those sea-changing eyes whose color mutated with every mood, and if she had been any closer, she would have fallen into them and been lost.

"My dear," Mme. Giry said, and then Meg broke in.

"You don't have to worry! Everything is all right, Christine. Erik has been so good to us!" Her blood was like ice in her veins, that cold, that sluggish.

"Erik?" she said. Meg and Mme. Giry looked at one another, then at her.

"That is my name," he said in his gorgeous voice, the voice pitched to touch her very core. He had never told her his name. He had always, only been her Angel of Music, and she had mourned him, silently, but here he was, sitting with her two closest friends in all the world, and they knew his name. She burst into tears.


	14. 14

Erik had seen a production of Mozart's _Don Giovanni._ The idea of a pit opening up and pulling him into Hell was suddenly appealing. He should have known that she would hate him, but to see her cry was misery. Meg and Giry seemed to be at a complete loss, and Christine simply stood where she was with tears running down her cheeks. There was so much he wanted to say to her, but not if the very sight of him caused her so much pain.

"I will go," he said. He gathered up his score and tried to hold himself straight as he left the room. It seemed like an impossible effort—the weight of his heart was immeasurable. Meg laid her hand on his arm as he passed. When he got to his room, he very deliberately shut the door so that it would make no sound, although every nerve in him screamed to slam the thing shut. Then he sank onto his bed with his hands over his face, and it was a long time before he moved again.

How easy it was to fall again into that sense of emptiness, of the certainty that for always he would have only his miserable self for company. And yet. Too much had healed in him; too much had changed. He could not break apart into madness, which had been a solace of sorts, because there was no thought to it, only reaction and feeling. Certainly he was miserable to have been the cause of that radiant face dissolving into tears. But he could not rage at himself for it. He knew too well all that was different He also could imagine what she was thinking—a novel sensation. She had no idea of all he had discovered, these past months. To her knowledge, he was still a madman, violent and desperate. There was no reason for her to think otherwise. She obviously had no idea that he would be here, which only compounded the shock.

"I must not be hopeless," he told himself. There would still be time to speak to her. He did not allow room for thoughts of friendship—all he wanted was one conversation. And to love her, to possess her, beyond the limitations of one lifetime, into forever … no. That was not a fruitful line of thought. That he would always love her was without doubt. Erik could not imagine that his battered heart would ever open to another woman. But in any case, he loved her now, and if he had been selfish in the past, he would not be so any longer. If his presence hurt her, he would not inflict himself on her.

The confidence he had been slowly building had disappeared. He again wanted to hide. He did not think that Meg and Giry would abandon him, but if Christine wanted to stay with them, where would he go? He could find an inn or hotel, if he upset her so. He started to make a list in his mind of what he would take with him. "Damn it." He jerked up off the bed and paced the room. No. He would not slink away like a dog. If she asked him to go, he would, but she would have to ask. He marveled at himself, his stubbornness. It was a different creature from that of old. He did not feel entitled or want to fight for fighting's sake. But this was his home, and he would not make assumptions. Was this hope? Or even good sense? He hardly knew. He felt that he did not know anything anymore, least of all himself.

Further work was impossible. Despite his outward calm, his mind could not focus on the notes, nor on a book. There were no sounds of hysterics from down the hallway, at least. Erik wore himself out with pacing, and when he finally laid in bed, he ached in every bone. As always, darkness was where sadness lived, where hunger crawled under his skin. Mere feet away, the woman he loved was sitting, perhaps, in a chair where he sat every day, and she was hating his presence. Christine. The minute his mind began to quiet, all he could see in the darkness was her face. She was more beautiful than ever. When he had passed, he had caught a whiff of her perfume, the same as it had always been. For all that he had wished to cover her with roses, the scent she wore was jasmine with a hint of vanilla. It was a strange choice for such a young woman—deep and shockingly sensual.

Erik groaned. To wind himself in blankets and to bury his face into the pillow did nothing to comfort him. These past weeks, once he had crawled up out of the dullness that had clouded his mind after the fire, he had been too occupied to dwell much on Christine. To have seen her brought everything back, and it was as if, having lain quietly in his mind, his desire had grown in strength and fire. His mouth burned—the memory of her kiss played over and over behind his eyes, and he could practically feel her slight form pressed against him, the silk of her hair tangled around his fingers. The memory of her taste was a whisper, pervasive, and it only brought to mind more restless thoughts of the sweet pressure of her mouth and the stunning, unbearable miracle of her probing tongue. Such memories tormented him until deep in the night, but sleep finally released him.


	15. 15

He did not even look at her as he left the room. "I will go" was all he said—no greeting, nothing that would indicate anything other than a desire to be away from her. Christine was mortified and saddened, enough confused that she could think of nothing to say. That Meg touched his arm as he passed only made her cry harder.

For a time, she was inconsolable. Mme. Giry was able to draw her into a chair, and Meg, ever affectionate, rocked Christine against her breast as if she were a small child. After her long day of travel, she did not have the energy to weep forever, but as her sobs quieted, she was left aching and hollow. The wide-eyed little maid brought in tea and toast, and Mme. Giry set about pouring and buttering, although her frequent glances were sharply curious. Meg sat close by, holding Christine's hand.

As Mme. Giry passed around the tea, she said, "Is it so horrible, then, to see him again?"

That she had been so misunderstood brought on another rush of tears. Once this was done, Christine felt that she could sleep for a month. She hurt from head to toe. Several sips of tea roused her a bit.

"I thought—I assumed that he was dead," she said finally, and Mme. Giry nodded.

After a moment, she said, "Perhaps that would be easier for you?"

Christine squirmed in her chair. "I would never wish such a thing!" She frowned into her teacup. "No," she said, shaking her head. "It's just very surprising." Everything she said sounded wrong. "I don't understand."

Mme. Giry's story astounded her. With every word, Christine felt her eyebrows rising ever closer toward her hairline.

"He came for us not long after the fire started. I didn't even know; the smoke had not reached ground level yet. Had I waited—for it was very hard to think of going—who knows what would have happened? Yet he came for us, and Erik, Meg, and I have remained together these past months."

Meg interrupted. "I call him Uncle, Christine! Could you ever have imagined it? The Phantom of the Opéra? Every time I think of it, I have to laugh. He is not as he was in the theater. He bought me hair ribbons! Never once has he bullied us or been cruel. Even when I started teaching at the school, he has made me keep all my wages." Christine could only gape. Mme. Giry patted her hand.

"You should give him a chance, my dear. He has changed a great deal."

Christine's mind was spinning. It was too much information, and none of it made any sense. "You mean … he pays for all of this?" Mme. Giry nodded but said nothing. She had more questions than her mouth could form words for. She kept coming back to the same thought—he is alive. She must have said it aloud, because Meg squeezed her hand.

"Were you so sure, then, that he was dead?" Mme. Giry asked gently. Christine nodded. "Can you tell us?" She had not spoken of it to a soul, even in confession. To say the words was more difficult than she would have guessed.

"There was a mob," she said after a moment. "We could hear them coming. He let—he let us go. By the time we reached the theater, there was smoke everywhere. We took a horse. Raoul took us to his family's house. He was hurt and ill. The next day, they said the opera house was destroyed. He lived so far underground, and we had the boat, and they were coming for him. I never thought—I was sure he had died." She wanted to cry, but there were no tears left in her. She stared down into her cup, and so she missed the long, solemn look that passed between the Giry women.

"But what happened before?" Meg asked. "We saw you fall down under the stage. I don't know about Maman, but I know that I worried whether you had survived."

Christine gawked at her friend. "The Angel didn't tell you?" There was another of those measured looks between mother and daughter.

"No," Mme. Giry said. "Erik has told us nothing of that night." Christine's nerves snapped, and she jumped up from her chair, pacing around the room. Even she could hear the childish whine in her voice.

"Erik! How is it that you so easily call him Erik and Uncle, and whatever pet names you have invented, while I was kept always in the dark?" Her hands clenched reflexively at her sides, and Mme. Giry gaped at her.

"You never knew his name?"

"No!" Christine cried out, and it seemed that she did have tears left after all. Mme. Giry sighed.

"Child, you cannot do this tonight. It is too much. We have a great deal to say to one another—all of us—but not until you have had some rest." They tucked her into Meg's bed, and she was asleep before she had time to protest. Mme. Giry sat for a long time afterward, staring into the fire.


	16. 16

Erik's old habit of sleeplessness returned to him, such that he awoke early enough to be reasonably sure of not meeting Christine. Regardless, he dressed carefully. He was not as thin as he had been during the days of his madness, and he had not replaced the collection of wigs burned in the fire. His appearance would always be loathsome, but he was satisfied to no longer look quite so imposing, now that he was not in the business of scaring people for a living.

Still, he was glad that Christine was not in the small dining room. Both Giry women were. Meg, as ever, was bolting an amount of food that was surprising for so slight a girl. Giry looked exhausted. By the time he had finished buttering his toast, Erik had decided what to say.

"I thought I would go out," he said, as if it was perfectly natural. "Is there anything you need?"

Meg stared at him, and Giry sighed. "You will hide from her, then? For how long?"

Erik gritted his teeth. "Given that the sight of me makes her weep, I should think it wise to give her time to compose herself." He had not slept at all well. It was a struggle to remain polite.

Giry nodded. "Just so long as you are not going to do something foolish like disappear or give up your home."

Erik blinked at her. He wondered at her ability to know what he had been thinking. To be understood was a marvel. It was also a little frightening. Despite his moments of lucidity, he had in fact been thinking that it would be better to disappear.

"What a mess," he sighed to his plate; then he scowled at Meg's giggle.

Strange, how little used he still was to daylight. Late summer was still too warm for the camouflage of a cloak, and he felt exposed, wandering the streets with only a hat to blunt the strangeness of his masked face. It was all an act, this business of lounging at a café, his long legs dwarfing the tiny chair, sipping coffee as if he cared not one bit that his face was a ruin, that he wore a mask for all to see. Yet he did it.

And all the while that he sat, it might have looked as if he was engrossed in his book of Italian poetry, in the notes he was making in a small notebook, or even in the highly polished tip of his boot. That, too, was an act. He marveled at the talent that his hands possessed for not trembling. He praised his foot for not tapping and his lungs for breathing as if all was right with the world and Christine Daae did not sit again in his home. There was too much to think of. For one: what, really, did he want to say to her? For another: why in God's name was she _not_ to marry the Vicomte? What did she plan? Both critical and terrifying: did she really hate him? Beyond anything, he wanted for her not to hate him. He had no idea how to go about it. He no longer had a lair to be filled with seductive tricks, and he was no longer the master of a domain built on fantasy.

He started a letter. _My beloved angel_ was crossed out, as were _my dearest love, eternal darling, _and _most exquisite of women._ Very quickly, he was simply writing as fast as his hand could move. _Christine. My angel. Can you ever forgive me for the wrongs I have done to you? For all that I have adored you utterly, I have been unfair. I sought to bewitch and overwhelm you. I never once gave you the respect that you deserved or asked —much less worked—for your affection. In my misery and selfishness, I did not treat you as one who is loved. I made you into a thing to be possessed. God, how I longed to possess you._ Here, he stopped. His hand was, finally, trembling. The page was ripped from his book and crumpled into a tiny ball.

"If only I could write a duet for tenor and violin that would make her understand," he thought, and then he grimaced at himself. There would be no _making_ her do anything—he had to make sure of that. He was done controlling anyone but himself. He hoped. He prayed, fervently, every day. The coffee was cold. Erik sighed with irritation and left the café to wander the streets, hardly knowing where he went. He could not keep his thoughts in order. He wanted to show her how much he regretted his madness. He wanted to make amends for his sins. He wanted to protect her from fear and danger and to do anything she asked to promote her happiness. Then, too, he wanted to crush her in his arms, to feel her mouth pressed against his. The thought of her lying in a bed separated from his by no more than a wall tormented him. There could be nothing more heavenly than to be able to reach for her, to trace her cheek with his fingertips. Once, he had watched her sleeping in his bed, and it was the height of beauty. He shook his head. No, there was. She had been even more gorgeous last night, vibrant and happy, until she had caught sight of him. In these calmer days, he no longer found himself weeping with despair. On occasion, he missed it—he would welcome the release.

Erik looked up and realized that his feet had carried him back to the start of it all. There was no sign that anyone was ready to reclaim the property—the ruins remained untouched. He stood with his hands in his pockets and stared at his shattered kingdom. The building had been everything to him—home, school, playground. He remembered very little of his early childhood, and he did not want to remember the years of captivity. For him, life began when Giry took his hand, ran with him through the streets to a loose grate that led to a warren of stone corridors that pressed on him coldly but in comfort. How he had always loved to see what was above and below him, with no dizzying expanse of sky. He had learned, had explored, had watched, and his watching had led to blackmail, which had led to control. Looking back, he very nearly felt sympathy for M. Lefevre and his taste for opium and boy whores, even though it was this that had allowed Erik to cultivate his taste for fine clothing, to build his comfortable lair and, eventually, the secret passageways and silent doors that had enabled him to bewitch Christine. It was a long story, with her at the center.

He remembered the first time he saw her. It was not long after she had come to the Opéra, so she was seven years old. He was not sure how old he was—he had been a young man, although past his gawkiness. Those were his days of skulking about trying to catch a glimpse of a bare breast or of the strangely thrilling thatch of hair between a woman's legs. Normally, a child would have held no interest for him. He was passing back down toward his home. There was a room in the upper basement that inexplicably had a stained-glass window of an angel and a votive stand. Some of the Opéra members used it as an ersatz chapel—Erik had found it to be a good spot for gathering useful information, which was why his usual path took him past it.

A small voice was singing. He did not understand the language, and it would be many weeks before his studies told him that she was singing in Swedish. The song was obviously a lullaby, but the child did not finish it—before long the song was cut off by miserable sobs. It was the singing that intrigued him; misery was no stranger. He was curious as to what kind of child would have such technique, as if she had been trained.

Erik peered through a hidden crack in the frame of the window at the weeping little girl, dressed as a ballet student, huddled on the floor. He could not understand the language she spoke, but the word "Papa" was frequent and clear. He was idly sympathetic, but he did not pause for long. Yet because she lived in the ballet dormitory and had been taken under Giry's wing, he soon learned about her—orphan of the Swedish violinist Daae, who patron had seen fit to give the virtuoso a magnificent tomb but not a sou to his daughter. So the language and the training were explained. Her orphan status made her marginally more interesting. She evidently struggled with French, but as he heard her in passing, more often he heard the word "angel." One day, as he listened to her plead to the spirit of her father to send the Angel of Music to her, he was struck by a perverse notion. Pitching his voice as low as possible, he said, "Child, I am here." She screamed in terror and ran from the room. It was many days before she returned.

Erik shook his head to clear it of memories. That had been more than a decade before. Ten years of tumultuousness. He wondered whether she even remembered the language of her birth. He wondered whether she remembered that day and what she thought of her Angel now. If fate was kind, he would ask her some day. In the meantime, the sun was setting, and he turned for the comfort of home.


	17. 17

She awoke late, and for a moment she didn't know where she was—an unfamiliar room, sparsely furnished, with strange clothes hung on hooks on the wall. And toe shoes. She was in Paris again, with Meg, Mme. Giry, and, astonishingly, the Angel. Erik. She was hungry and gritty, but Christine rolled over and pulled Meg's pillow to her. He might be anywhere else in the house, and she wanted to gather herself. It was so strange to think of his having a name, stranger even than his being alive. For so many years, most of her life, he had been a figure of overwhelming influence, part master and part father figure, but never an actual person. The night of _Hannibal,_ when he had drawn her through the mirror, she had been amazed that she could actually touch his hand. The leather of his glove had been cold. The whole episode remained a blur—candlelight, song, a white horse straight out of fairy tales. Then he had stood behind her, his arms around her, and there was nothing cold about him at all. There was been gossiping crushes during her early teenage years, but what the Angel—Erik! she whispered fiercely—had enveloped her in his warmth and strength, his beautiful voice thrumming through her, and she had felt like a girl in a novel, weak-kneed and breathless. Had it not been for the disturbing figure in the wedding dress, with a face too much like her own, her virtue would not have survived the night.

This had not made him seem any more real. There was too much strangeness. Then she had awoken to find him looking weirdly vulnerable, half-dressed and bent over his keyboard. Had she been sensible, she would have kept her distance, talked to him, perhaps solved a mystery or two. But the shy expression on his face and the gorgeous masculine curve of his neck were too great a temptation. Her hands had itched to touch him. It had been a marvel of textures—smooth hair, warm skin, the satiny chill of his leather mask. There had been a hot flutter deep in her belly when he arched his neck at her touch and very nearly purred with pleasure. It had not occurred to her that there was a reason why he wore the mask.

She had no time to be repulsed by his face; the surprise was too great, and then he was shouting at her, cursing her, and she understood only that she had disappointed him. It was later that the face tormented her with its ugliness, made worse by the knowledge that her dreams of angelic glory were gone and that she had always been wrong.

For the months afterward, particularly the time after the stagehand's murder, she had been furious with the Angel. She felt that he had tricked her, had used her for some wicked purpose that she didn't even know, and she brushed aside all the affection and gratitude she had felt for him. It had been a triumph of sorts to accept Raoul's suit, to throw over the disappointing Angel who had frightened her, deceived her, and instead turn to someone young, handsome, and living in the world. Since that time, though, she had remembered all the years of kindness, and she regretted many of the things she had done. She had been so lonely as a little girl, and the Angel had been hers alone, sent by her dead Papa to look after her so that she need not be afraid. He had protected her—he seemed to know everything that happened in the theater, and, several times, people who had bullied or frightened her had broken bones or suddenly run afoul of management, so that even in her unpopularity she had been safe. His belief in her, in her talent, had helped to shape her. She thought that she would not have handled things with the Chagnys so well if it had not been for all those years of affirmation.

She still could hardly reconcile the beautiful voice of her angelic friend with the man whose kiss still tortured her, much less with the man in this house who had apparently helped her friends to safety and was even now keeping them alive. Why Mme. Giry? He had never mentioned her, although there had been times when Madame had brought messages from him, now she thought about it. It was this thought that finally drew Christine out of bed. There were stories within stories here, and she felt that she must hear them all before she truly understood what had happened to her. She rose, washed, dressed, and went in search of the first set of answers.


	18. 18

Mme. Giry had always thought that Christine Daae would have a talent for laziness if she indulged it. That the child stayed in bed until luncheon did nothing to dispel this notion. She looked as if she had not had an easy night, but then, probably none of them had except Aimée, blissfully unaware on her pallet in the kitchen. Christine was many moments pondering what she wanted to say.

"Madame," she said finally, "did you know the Angel—Erik—before?"

Of all the questions Christine could have asked, this one she would not have foreseen.

"My dear, I have known Erik since he was a child." Christine's head snapped upward, and her dark eyes bristled with betrayal. "I told the story to the Vicomte. He did not tell it to you?" Anger turned to shock, and tears brimmed in the girl's eyes as she shook her head. Mme. Giry could not understand how they had all been in such a welter of misunderstanding. The poor girl had been used by them all. She sighed heavily.

"I cannot imagine how we have come to this. I suppose the Vicomte meant only to protect you."

Telling the story to the Vicomte had been difficult enough—this was worse. She knew how tangled the girl's feelings were for Erik. The Vicomte had had no sympathy for him—the Phantom had been his enemy, and he wanted information merely to find a weakness. Christine wanted to understand, so Mme. Giry included a great many more details: the state of starvation he had been in when she rescued him, the long years of loneliness, his obsessive studies.

"We have had such a strange time of it," she said. " And there have been times when he bullied me as much as he did anyone else. Yet I have always felt responsible for him, and there have been times when he has shown me true friendship, in his own way. He was a great comfort to me when my husband died. He was the only person who would allow me to truly mourn."

Christine sat staring downward, her fingers twisting over one another. Mme. Giry didn't know whether she wanted to comfort the girl or to shake her, bring her into the realities of the world. She had always been a highly strung girl, much given to dreaming.

"How many," Christine said in a hoarse voice; then she cleared her throat. "How many people has he killed?"

This seemed beside the point. "To my knowledge? Three. The man from the carnival, Joseph Buquet, and Piangi. You know some of the accidents that he caused, but you cannot think that he makes a habit of murder."

The girl scowled. "Three people dead!"

"I will not make excuses for his actions this past year. During the time that he … taught you, he told me none of his thoughts, and by the end it is certain that he was quite mad." Christine glared at her.

"You cannot deny it. But that first death, all those years ago—that was hardly murder. He was just a boy, and that carnival was a terrible place. He was treated like an animal, with unbearable cruelty. That man would have killed him eventually. Even then, in those first years, when he was still a child, he would not speak of it. He has known so little of kindness." She trailed off, thinking back to those days of worry. It had been many weeks until she had stopped worrying that the police would find her at the theater and drag the two of them away. He rarely spoke, even then, and for the first few days she would go into the cellars to find him in the same spot where she had left him. He would clutch her hand silently and try to eat the food she took him one-handed.

"I can't even imagine it," Christine said finally. Mme. Giry felt a spike of sympathy at this and patted her hand.

"I was there for all of it, and even I can barely do so." She sighed. "Looking back, I think that I was very foolish. I worried that someone would come for him, would take him away to even more punishments. So I left him in the cellars. But if I had been able to bring him up into the world, to find someone to care for him—well. I cannot change that part. But I have often thought of all the things I regret having done and not done, as the prayer goes. I told him too little and left him too much alone." She smiled. "We argued about this, not long ago."

Christine shivered. "He's frightening when he's angry."

Mme. Giry chuckled. "It was not that kind of argument, my dear. We each of us were trying to take the blame for everything that happened at the Opéra.

Christine stared at her in confusion.

"No matter. But know that he has his own regrets, although I will leave that discussion to him. He has changed a great deal, these past months. It is as if much of his anger burned away with the theater." She looked at Christine sharply. "And I hope that you will be mindful of that. You have power over him. Do not treat it lightly."


	19. 19

The comment was ridiculous. The Angel had always been the one with power. It was he who commanded her, who instructed and guided her. Then she thought of that final evening, how he had railed at her and pleaded. She had been willing to stay with him, and that had been enough. That had evidently been all he wanted, for he had let her go. It was painful to think about, even still, that confusion of rage, fear, sadness, and desire. Mme. Giry left her to her thoughts with a brief pat on the shoulder.

With too many thoughts crowding her head, she stood to look about the room. It was not an elegant room, but it was comfortable, with three chairs arranged around the hearth just as if many conversations were held there—quiet, calm conversations, for the chairs were set close. She went to the desk under the window, where the Angel had been sitting the night before. It was strangely plain, with just one drawer, and tall for a desk. Inside the drawer was a stack of quills, mostly uncut, and a small penknife. The knife was fairly new, but already there were smudges of ink on the handle, which made her smile. Candle drippings littered one corner of the table, as well of a line of drops leading from the inkwell, as if he had been writing too quickly to pay attention. She remembered the opulent untidiness of his rooms under the Opéra and had to smile again. She sat in the chair—plain, uncomfortable, without even a cushion.

What was it she had called him that night? "Pitiful creature of darkness." She had been more right than she knew. There was still so much confusion. That Raoul had known the whole story and not told her was painful. But when she thought of _how_ he might have told her, she shook her head. He would have had no patience for an abused child, for a lifetime of isolation. She tried to imagine it. Her childhood had been sad after her father died, and she had often been lonely and felt like an outsider, but that could be nothing compared with the misery and loneliness of the Angel, down in his catacombs.

"Perhaps," she thought, turning over in her hand a battered and ink-stained quill, "that was what drew him to me."

She had never thought of it before, having always assumed that he was some semi-mystical creature sent from Heaven. It made sense. They had sought comfort in one another. It's just that things went terribly wrong.

Christine thought back to the first time he had ever spoken to her. She had been kneeling in front of the angel window, pleading with her father to send the Angel of Music to her as he had promised, when a beautiful voice rang out, "Child, I am here." She smiled at her young self. She had been so determined, in her desperation, that her father would reach to her from beyond death. She had been so unhappy, amid strangers and with her broken French, suddenly spending every day dancing her child's body into exhaustion. She had wanted to be rescued. Her Papa had always saved her from fear and harm—from bees, from strangers, from dark things in the night. Surely death would make no difference in that. He was Papa. That he would never save her again had been too much to bear.

Of course, the voice startled her. She had screamed in fright and been afraid to return for the better part of a week. Getting wishes could be frightening, she discovered. Looking back, she realized how inattentive the Angel was for the first couple of years when she had prattled to him about her girlish woes. Yet he had always been there for her. Any time that the conversation strayed from music, responses had been sparse indeed, but she had learned to become aware of his presence, and she had taken comfort in it, even when he had said nothing. Those meetings in the chapel had been so precious to her. She realized that, without them, she would likely have made more of an effort to make friends in the ballet corps. Little girls with no manners were not as interesting as angels. As she had grown, she had spoken to him less of her daily life and troubles, but she had never questioned that he knew anyway. That he was everywhere was understood, and it was mostly a comfort.

She thought of how much time it had been. Papa had died when she was seven; it was several months later that he first spoke to her. Ten full years, then of friendship—a strange friendship, certainly, made up of songs, of scales and arpeggios, rather than conversations. And just over a year of strangeness. Carlotta had been having little "accidents" for a couple of years before that, but they had been limited to minor frights and irritations. It was just in that one year. He had become more demanding and strict, had talked more frequently of her impending stardom. What had it been that triggered the change? Of course it was love. He had fallen in love with her but had had no idea how to express it. All he knew were loneliness and pain. He had behaved stupidly, but she considered that he simply knew no better.

It was another piece of the puzzle, but it wasn't enough. Never mind about Raoul. Never mind about this astonishing friendship between the Angel and Mme. Giry. She wanted to know about this supposed madness that had driven him to murder. She wanted to know whether she was right—that his love for her had driven him to such desperation. Most important, she wanted to know why he had let her go.

She sighed. It had been one thing to mourn him and to mourn her misunderstood blossoming of desire when he had been dead. To think that he was alive and had changed his mind created a hollow ache in her chest. What if she had hurt him too badly? What if recovering from his madness meant that he had recovered from loving her? Christine shook her head.

"Now I'm going mad," she said. She was thinking as if she wanted him to love her. Could that even be? Surely there was too much pain between them, too much horror. It was as if there were two of her—the half that missed her friend and protector and the half that wanted to rage at him for his cruelty, for taking away her home and livelihood, for ruining her dreams in the most horrible betrayal. Then there was another part—a small, secret part, one she didn't want to acknowledge—that remembered the fire of his kiss and cared not at all for circumstances or feelings but wanted only more of him, his mouth on hers and the circle of his arms blocking out the world.

She moaned to herself and put her face into her hands.


	20. 20

She was sitting at his desk, head in hands, looking so beautiful and so sad. Erik wished that anything could have been different, anything that would make it possible for him to go to her, to put his arms around her and murmur words of comfort. This too was new. In the past, he had reacted to her hurts with rages or by finding ways to conveniently trip a bully or to let M. Lefevre know that some little cat was trying to catch the favors of the baritone (his brother-in-law). He had, on occasion, written music for her, but he had never told her about it. So much was unspoken. He could only regret all the opportunities lost. At that thought, he steeled himself. Here at least was an chance that he would not let pass by. He cleared his throat gently and tried to compose his face into an expression of mildness when she jumped in the chair and whirled around toward him.

"I hope that you are rested from your journey," he said, and then as she stared at him, "I, er, apologize for my … abruptness last night. I had no wish to offend you."

If he hadn't been so nervous, he might have smiled at her facial expression—her mouth was actually hanging open. They stared at one another like wild animals, until Giry saved them by entering the room.

"There you are," she said. "I trust that you have not walked yourself into a blister?"

Erik scowled at her. "I am very well, thank you."

Giry snorted. "Each of you is worse than the other. One day or no, I have had enough of being holed up in my room. If you wish to skulk about or hang in corners staring at one another, fine, but I am putting my old bones in front of the fire."

Erik joined Christine in her open-mouthed gape. Giry's grin looked suspiciously wicked. He tried again.

"You do not mind if I join you?" he asked Christine. After a brief hesitation, she shook her head. When he went to remove his jacket and fetch another book, he noticed that his hands were trembling, and his face felt hot. Still, it was a victory of sorts that she hadn't wept.

When he returned to the parlor, Christine had moved to one of the chair by the fire—the one that was usually his own. Erik sat at his desk, turned slightly so that he could watch the women from the corner of his eye. Giry was knitting, and Christine seemed deeply engrossed in a small piece of embroidery. He supposed that it must have looked to be a peaceful scene, but his heart was thudding in his chest.

He was normally a fast reader, but he didn't turn the page once. His eyes would focus on the words, but there was a disconnect to his brain—the sweep of Christine's arm was distracting. Every time he looked up, it seemed as if Giry was smirking at him. He still could hardly believe that he was sitting—calmly, even—in the same room as the woman for whose sake he had nearly destroyed himself. And her. And them all. This sparked a wave of despair. Surely there would be no second chance for him, not after so much pain. He must not allow himself ever to speak of it, barely to think of it. He had let her go once. That decision would have to stand. "It would kill me to hurt her again," he thought, and knew that it was not madness speaking but truth.

He thought of Meg and Giry, how they had grown used to each other and into something that he thought was friendship. He could place his hope there. Perhaps, in time, Christine would also come to value him as a friend, if he could prove to her that he was now sane and no danger to her. If he could keep quiet the love that burned steadily just under the surface of his skin.


	21. 21

Christine could not remember a time when she had known the Angel to be so polite. It wasn't that he was any less charismatic, but he was somehow less imposing, more calm. His face had always seemed to mirror the scowl of his mask—now it did not. In calm, his eyes were the vivid blue of a summer sky. Dressed less formally and not in his cloak, he looked less broad, but his stillness made him seem even more tall. She could only gape at him, especially when he apologized to her. It was unprecedented. In all the years she had known him, the barest hint that he might be wrong in any way brought on withering sarcasm. Who was this man?

And then Mme. Giry had dared to tease him! The world had turned upside down. She absolutely had to occupy her hands and scurried for her embroidery when Erik left the room. She moved to sit closer to Madame, not wanting to keep the Angel from his desk. She felt badly enough that she had quite ruined that one quill by twisting it. Their quiet was strangely comfortable, even though Christine could feel the fluttering of her heart and she had to concentrate hard to keep her stitches neat. Her mind worked busily. He had apologized for his "abruptness." He hoped that he had not offended her. So he did not hate her after all? She stabbed her needle into the linen. Her own manners had been very bad, and now it was too late to answer him. She wished for him to pluck her thoughts out of her mind—no, she was not offended. More than anything, she was thankful that he was alive. It was all very confusing, and she still could hardly grasp all that Mme. Giry had told her, but he was alive. Still living, and sitting not six feet away. She wished that things were not so strange, that she could go to him, lay her hand on his, and tell him these things.

Meg saved them all, dear Meg, tumbling into the room and not stopping a moment in her chatter until halfway through supper. Christine was grateful to ride along on the flow of words, to smile at her. The scarecrow maid turned out to be a fair cook, if nothing on the order of Mme. Henri.

"Did you do anything today, Christine?" Meg asked her finally and then looked at her place as if she had just noticed its presence.

Mme. Giry laughed. "She slept until luncheon." She leaned over to tap Christine's hand. "It seems I was right about your laziness, my girl."

On her other side, the Angel made a choked sound that, in anyone else, would have sounded liked a stifled laugh. The Angel did not laugh, so it must have been something else.

"What was that?" Mme. Giry asked him. He ducked his head.

"Nothing, I assure you," he rumbled to his silverware. Christine was amazed by the devilish glint in Madame's eye.

"Are you sure? I was certain you meant to say something."

He looked at Madame with a wry twist to his mouth. "Absolutely not."

Christine gazed back and forth between the two of them, surprise warring with—jealousy? "Don't be stupid," she told herself, pushing her food about on her plate. This was because they had known each other for so long—since before she was born. Besides, what was the use of anything like jealousy? She would be gone soon. All her confusion was pointless. Better to focus on what was real, what could be done in the time she had. Some kind of peace; that was possible. Then she could leave it all behind her and start anew.

"But what about afterward?" Meg said. "You can't have just sat around."

Sadly, Mme. Giry had that strange look in her eye again, so Christine knew she would have to answer.

"Madame and I just talked," she said. Her eyes would not be ruled. She glanced at … Erik … and he was gazing at her steadily, with a slight frown. Meg saved her again.

"Well, I hope it wasn't about that gown you're wearing. If I've missed out on any talk of clothes, I shall be furious."

The Angel (Erik!) made that strange sound again. Christine grinned at her friend.

"No, it was all much more boring."

But the strange moment was over, and Meg was talking again. Through the end of dinner it was all dresses and hairstyles, until they were sitting in front of a nice fire and Christine grabbed her friend's hands and said, "And I've absolutely decided. I'm taking you shopping before I go. After all the times we've talked about it, surely we deserve it."

The second the words left her mouth, she regretted it. Meg's smile turned to confusion, and Madame sat forward in her chair.

"Go where?" the Angel said from behind her, at the same time that Madame said, "With what money?"


	22. 22

As it had always been, to silently watch told Erik more than asking questions ever could. Christine was as jumpy as a deer, but her eyes were not fearful when she looked at him—confusion was there, certainly, and hesitation, but not fear. He had very nearly laughed at Giry's comment about her laziness, remembering how much doing it had taken on his part to cow her into putting half the effort into her singing that he wanted. Of course, now that he thought about it, his demands had probably been unrealistic. The outlook was quite different from a place of regular meals, adequate sleep, and a warm home that didn't drip constantly. Then talk turned to women's fashion, and his attention wandered to topics more interesting (anything else, really).

So when she said, "before I go," his attention wrenched back toward her with a nearly audible snap, and his belly turned to ice. His own "go where?" left his mouth before he could control himself.

Christine drew back into herself until she seemed very small. Where had she picked up that habit of twisting her fingers? It looked painful. An age passed before she spoke.

"I have money," she said in a low voice. "You all know very well that I will never work in Paris again." Erik felt sure that the accusation in her voice was meant for him.

"And I know the salary they paid you," Giry said, "and how little of it you saved. I ask again—what money?"

"I don't see why you care to know!" she shouted. Dread was creeping steadily along Erik's spine.

Apparently Giry's thoughts were much the same, for she asked softly, "What have you done, child?"

Christine was evidently in a rage—she jumped up out of her chair and paced in front of the fire. "I haven't done anything!" she said. "And even if I have, what right do you have to judge me for it?" She turned to him and hissed, "Any of you? I have done what I must to survive!"

Then she collapsed where she was and sat on the floor sobbing. Meg was at her side at once; Erik discovered himself to be standing. Giry was also standing, staring down at Christine with her mouth drawn into a thin line. She let the girl cry for a moment, then thumped her cane on the floor in true ballet-mistress fashion. They all of them jumped.

"I asked you a question, girl. Who gave you money?"

He gripped the back of his chair hard enough to hurt. It was a necessary distraction. He would not—must not—think of her giving herself to that boy. Must not picture her lying beneath him, God, must not hear her voice crying out, "Raoul."

"The Comte de Chagny," Christine spat. The—what?

Meg asked for him. "The Comte?"

Bitterness ran through each of Christine's words. "Of course. So I wouldn't marry Raoul, you know. So that I can go as far away as possible." She glanced up at Giry. "And it's a sight better than things half a dozen of your other girls have done, so I'll thank you to keep quiet about it!"

Giry's brows were still drawn, but her mouth softened. "Is that what it came to, then? I am sorry."

Christine stood, unsteadily, with tears running down her cheeks but her eyes still angry.

"Are you? I can't imagine what you're sorry for. After all, you had your own selves to look after."

At that, Meg started to cry. "Christine, how can you be so cruel? I missed you every day! And when you wrote and said you weren't getting married, well, I was miserable! How can you speak so? We are your friends!"

The look she shot him was pure venom. "Are you?" she said. "Are you all?"

Just when he had begun to hope, she made it clear. She did hate him. Surely it was nothing more than he deserved, after all he had done. It took every speck of will, but he bowed to her calmly, even as his mind raged and his heart broke all over again.

"Mademoiselle, it would have been my greatest honor if you had considered me your friend."

After that, he could only concentrate on keeping his back straight, his steps measured. He could do nothing about the trembling of his hands. Erik counted his steps. Twelve to the doorway. Thirty down the hall, and then at last he was in the haven of his own room and could sink to his knees, could at last gasp and sob with the pain that flooded him. "You all know very well that I will never work in Paris again." He had not considered it, but it must be true. She had a reputation for scandal, and while audiences might forgive, managers and other singers would not. She was right to blame him. It was entirely his fault.

Erik tore off his cravat—he could not get enough air. As his fingers fumbled with his collar, he noted how familiar this choking, grinding pain was. It took him a moment to place—that last night at the Opéra, when she had torn off his mask.

She must have known that it was the worst kind of betrayal, to expose his hideousness to the world. The memories would not be pushed aside. He could very nearly feel the music in his throat, even as he gasped. She had known immediately when he had joined her on stage; she had gone rigid and then slowly relaxed, and when she sang at him—to him—he had staggered under the force of her voice, the fire underneath it. For years he had tried to coach her into singing with her very heart, not just lungs and throat. He had thought it was him, had arrogantly, stupidly assumed that his music had finally touched her. Then she had exposed him, and it was just like all of his nightmares, down to the screams and the calls for his head.

He had thought he was so powerful, that he could keep her forever. They played the same pattern over and over: in his lair, at the ball, in the graveyard, on the catwalk. He would draw her in and she would come close before she spurned him. The viper, she had taken all she could from him and made sure to hurt him at every turn. He had not seen it. She had played him for a fool. Groaning, he bent until his head touched the floor. He could not even cry.


	23. 23

It was the Angel's "would have been" that brought Christine back to herself. It made no sense to her. Why so final? Then he had walked so stiffly, like a broken thing. After he shut the door behind him, Madame said, "Oh, Christine. Why did you have to be so cruel?"

She turned to Mme. Giry, whose face was so sad that she looked a decade older. Meg, too, looked as if she would cry again. She felt so tired. Her legs no longer wanted to hold her up, so she sank into the nearest chair.

"I'm sorry," she said at last. She held out her hand to Meg and was gratified when the girl took it. "I am."

Meg and Mme. Giry sad as well, and Madame's sigh was heavy. It was a long time before any of them spoke.

"Were they horrible to you?" Meg asked at last.

Christine shook her head. "Actually, they were very kind, considering the circumstances."

"Then why?"

She ran her hands over her face. "I don't know. Because I'm a silly child?" She grimaced. "I thought I was doing so well. Even when the Comte finally … asked me to leave, I was relatively calm. Then I arrive here and behave like a madwoman." She kissed Meg's hand. "I'm sorry and sorry and sorry," she said.

"It is a hard thing, when they send the father to pay a girl off," Madame said after a moment.

Christine smiled ruefully. "It was not an easy conversation, surely, but it wasn't terrible. I already knew it was coming. I had known for months." And she told them of the first nights in the servants' quarters, the invented illness, her being shuffled off to the country cousin.

"But really I would have stayed with Aunt as long as they let me. She was so good to me, and it was a relief to be far away from everything and everyone. It was very quiet there." Her voice felt small in her throat. "It seems like a long time ago." Meg squeezed her hand.

"You must have broke your heart, to give him up."

Christine shook her head. "I hardly know. Sometimes yes, but mostly I think … I _think_ it's for the best. I have been so confused for so long that I don't know what I want." It was a revelation to her. "I don't know what I want."

There was that feeling of giddiness again, like in the coach, that all options were open to her and she had but to choose. Who was she? Whom did she want to be? Since Papa died, she had not made any choices. She had gone to the Opéra and danced. The Angel came to her and she sang. Raoul asked her to marry him and she said yes. The butler put her in with a housemaid and she did not fight. She went to Aunt's house. She took the money. All reaction, time and again, doing just what she was told. She did know that she would rather sing than anything else. And it would be better to go abroad, to start over in a new place. Christine sagged in her chair.

"It's all too much," she said. She looked down into Meg's sweet face. "I'm sorry. I feel awful to have caused such a mess."

Mme. Giry tapped her cane; Christine looked up.

"And what of Erik?"

"What do you mean?"

Again, Madame's face was lined by sadness.

"Obviously this is strange for you. I understand that. I am not sure that he does. He knows so little of people, and for all that he seems strong, he is not. I had thought that our discussion this afternoon would help you to understand, but then you speak to him as if he is your enemy." Madame stood slowly. "You are very welcome here, my dear, and I am glad for your safety, for your presence, and even for your good fortune. But if you hate our benefactor, Christine, I think it would be wise to make your visit with us short."

As she left the room, Christine could only gape at her. She looked at Meg, who only shook her head solemnly.


	24. 24

Dear Universe:

Please don't let them flame me for this chapter.

Love,

Owlet

* * *

It was the easiest thing in the world to fall back into despair. Erik had forgotten what it was like to be surrounded by such darkness that he even lost language—he lost time and was reduced to dissonance and a hot, crawling pain that tore through him. He felt himself a fool.

Just two days, and already he was back to the old days of anger and sadness, to the pervasive knowledge of his own repulsiveness. Yet his anger was not exactly as it had been; it was tinged with bitterness now. He could not wholly hate himself. Surprising as it was, he was also angry with Christine.

He sat up. For what seemed like the first in a long while, he drew a deep breath. Even during his three months of feverish solitude while composing _Don Juan Triumphant,_ after that devastating night on the rooftop when she accepted the boy's proposal, he had never blamed her. He had only ever blamed the boy for leading her astray. Christine, his angel, had been above blame, an innocent. He had thought of her as his own to mold—it was natural that another man would also think so.

Erik shook his head. The world was all confusion again, as it had been for too long. Contrary to all his habits, the room felt too small and the air too close. Before he could over-think himself, he had jacket and hat and was stalking down the dark street. The night air was cool on the left side of his face. There was the faintest whiff of autumn in the wind.

Winter would bring memories of snow falling on Christine's hair, of heartbreak, of three months spent in a frenzy of despair. Through all of it, he had held her blameless. Down in the tunnels on that final night, when the Vicomte had begged him not to hurt her, he had scorned the idea. Now, in the gentle air of late summer, Erik found that Christine was not perfection after all. Last night he could forgive—she had not known he would be there. Shock was normal, even though the memory of her joy dissolving into tears pained him.

Tonight, though, the way she turned on him: he walked faster, each step stretching the backs of his legs. Blame was too strong a word. He too had been temperamental, God knows. It did not change that she had hurt him, but he could see now that she was much the same. She was no pure, untouchable creature. She was flawed, just as he was. This made nothing easier.

"Hello, cheri," purred a voice from the shadows. He froze. He knew the trick, materializing from the darkness, a voice coalescing into form. She was old, for a whore—his own age or older—but there was a grace about her. Her eyes were sharp, not dead or predatory. The twist of her mouth was almost a wry smile.

"There are only two kinds of men who walk like that," she said. "Those who are walking out their pain and those who are talking themselves into courage. Which is it, petit?"

Given that he topped her by nearly a foot, the pet name made him smile.

"The former, I suppose," he said.

The woman clucked at him. "Life's too short for pain, cheri. Joy is so much better." She leaned back against the brick wall behind her, which threw out her chest. Her skin was very white. "I even know where you can find some joy."

Erik stared at her, hands in his pockets, fingers turning over coins. She laughed.

"The time you're taking to think, I could've had another customer already."

He flinched and turned to go. The woman laid her hand on his arm.

"Ah, cheri. Are you sensitive, then?"

He looked down into her glittering dark eyes, surrounded by too much paint, but there was wisdom there—and, strangely, humor. The humor made him blush.

"I never—" he blurted before he could stop himself, and those old eyes widened.

"Why, never?" she said, squeezing his arm as if she were actually sympathetic. He shook his head, all the while wanting to curl into a huddle of embarrassment. She reached up and laid a fingertip against his mask.

"No wonder you're sad, then, my darling," she said softly. "Perhaps it's time to lay that burden down."

Oh, he could be cynical about it. Surely this was a business ploy and she was a consummate actress. That she touched his mask without disgust made none of that matter. He had wanted Christine, but she hated him. He wanted peace. He wanted release from his torment, and if he could find that in the arms of a whore in a dark alley, so be it. He backed her into the dark.

He had lived so long in his mind, trying to deny his own flesh. "How stupid I've been," he thought, as he felt himself surrounded by her, little as she was. It wasn't about his flesh—it was about hers. Her lips and surprisingly firm tongue that tasted of a sweet, herbal liqueur. Her arms wrapped around him, one hand closed over his loose collar. Twice, he had put his arms around a woman—Christine—but this woman wore no corset, and it was a marvel to him how the curve of her breast and hip seemed to have been made for his hand.

When she opened his trousers and wrapped her hands around him, he was nearly undone. It was more different, more gorgeous than he could have imagined, and as she lifted her skirts, it was only the grit of brick under his palms that kept him from losing himself. All the days of his life would not give him time to get enough of this. He had watched, had burned, but he would never have imagined it, the way his knees shook, the way his hands so perfectly cupped her bottom, her hands on his shoulders, and again that loss of language. Strangely, his body knew what to do, and the friction of sliding in and out of her was so sweet. There was no room left in him for the monster. Here, up against this wall in the darkness, he was only a man.

Erik spilled into the woman with a feeling like he had one the one safe haven in all the world.

"Christine," he groaned into her neck. "Christine."

She was not Christine, but her put her arms around him anyway, and she let him stay as he was until he was able to breathe again. Of course, then it was time for all the awkward bits, and she was kindly silent as she tucked him up and straightened his clothing for him. He emptied his pockets, not even counting how much money he put into her hands. At that, she laughed.

"You'll quite turn my head, cheri. For this, I'm taking the rest of the night off."

She had been pretty, he thought, when she was young. Her dark eyes still were, for all that they were so tired. He thought it must be an ugly life, yet she had been kind to him. His legs were still shaky and he felt queerly light—as if, as she had said, he had laid down a great burden. He hoped that she had someplace clean and warm to go to, that she had a place to be safe. On an impulse, he took her hand and kissed it. Her true smile showed just how lovely she must have been, before life got the better of her.

"Thank you," he said, and then he turned toward home.


	25. 25

The longer she laid awake, the more miserable Christine became. She didn't know what she wanted to say, but she felt she _must_ speak to the Angel. To Erik. To try to make an apology, to try to understand. She was still sitting in the parlor when she heard him leave. She sat up for another hour, but he did not return home, so she finally went to bed.

Lying down was worse. She had to keep still so as not to wake Meg, but sleeping was impossible. How would she ever know what to say? She was glad he was still living. She was furious that he had destroyed everything. Curious as to whether he still loved her. Hurt that there was so much that had been kept from her. Confused, certainly. Since the fire, she had mostly skirted around the memories of that last night and why he had let her go.

She heard the front door open and someone trying to be quiet on the stairs. He passed her door and then, after a few minutes, passed it again, as if heading for the parlor. Christine shivered with a chill that was mostly nervousness. It would be better to speak privately, she was sure. Fewer eyes would help her to be more calm.

She rose from bed and wrapped herself in her robe—a much warmer and more sensible garment than she wore the last time he had seen her half-dressed. She could almost smell the heavy scent of beeswax undercut by cold water. She shook her head fiercely and crept down the short hallway.

The door was partly open. He sat at his desk with quill and paper but not writing. His mask lay by his hand. She knocked softly, and he grabbed for the leather.

"No, it's all right," she said, and noticed the deliberateness with which he laid the mask down, the pause before he turned to her.

Christine kept her face very still and met his eyes. He looked exhausted, and his tired eyes were as pale as she had ever seen them. His marred cheek was wet.

"Oh no," she said. "You're not—"

"No." He pulled a handkerchief from his pocked and mopped his cheek. "Forgive me. This eye does not blink properly. Sometimes it waters when I am tired."

She remembered thinking that she could listen to his voice forever. Then, too, his comment brought up a hundred questions about his face, none of which she would ever be able to ask, of course. Neither of them seemed to know where to look.

"May we speak?" she asked after a moment. He blinked at her, then started a little and stood.

"Of course."

The only light was from his one candle. Christine twisted her fingers together and tried to think of what to say. He remained standing, looking down at the floor, and she stared at him, his worn face, and he was almost as rumpled as on that last night at the Opéra. He did look sad, but a sense of desperation was missing. His stillness no longer carried a threat of menace. He swayed a little, and she remembered her manners. She turned a chair toward him and sat; he sank down with a great breath.

She had no idea how to begin. There were at least twenty subjects to talk over, each one with its own list of places to start. Words tumbled through her mind until she barely knew one from another.

"I was ashamed," she said, and surprised herself.

Evidently she surprised him too, because he only said, "Er, what?"

It took her a moment to get going, but then the words were simply spilling from her mouth.

"Earlier tonight, I mean. I was ashamed. That's why I lashed out, and I'm sorry." She twisted her fingers so hard that it hurt, and she anchored herself to the pain. "It was one thing to take the money and feel that I was free, but to speak of it, suddenly it seemed shameful, as if you—all of you—would think that I had lowered myself, after all the time you and Madame had ambition for me, but I was just like every other girl getting money on her back"—she did not notice his wince—"and I know I didn't but it's almost as bad, a chorus girl trying to catch a nobleman. I mean, it wasn't like that, but it's what people would say, and I couldn't bear it."

"Christine," he said, and she shut her mouth. "Your hands," he said. "Stop that. It looks painful."

She unlaced her fingers and laid her hands on her knees. They were red, and they did ache.

"I'm sorry," she said, and he sighed.

"I hardly know what to say to you," he said after a pause. "After all the harm I have caused, what right do I have to even try to make an explanation? And yet you are here, apologizing to me for being angry? Saying that you were ashamed what I might think of you, I who have murdered and blackmailed, who destroyed your home and your livelihood."

She looked up into his eyes and was saddened that any one face should hold so much regret.

"But I am sorry," she said.

"Thank you."

"Madame says you were mad, at the end." He passed his hand over his face. The dim, flickering light softened the harshness of it, blurred the line between his disfigurement and the perfect, handsome side.

"I was. Mad, desperate, furious. None of that is an excuse."

"You were … different, after you returned."

There was no mistaking the bitterness that twisted his mouth.

"I had forgotten that you never knew," he said. "The night I killed the stagehand, I followed you to the roof. I heard everything."

This explained a great deal. Her heart ached a little. She knew that she should feel more over Buquet's death, but he had been given to pinches and leaping from dark corners. Strangely, it was hard to focus on the murderer part when he was sitting so quietly in front of her. As it had always been, it was one thing to resent and plot against the Angel when she was away from him, but his presence compelled and confused her. She heard that beautiful voice and thought him capable of every good thing.

"Is that why you went mad?"

He gave an ugly bark of a laugh.

"You know, I thought of little else, those first weeks after the fire. How far back do I go? I have never been reasonable. I have always sought to use others for my gain. Is that madness? I don't know. After that night, certainly I was insane with despair. For three months after that night, I ate only when I was starving, slept only when my body collapsed. The rest of the time I composed that damnable opera and drove myself further into misery. But was that the start of it? Or was it when you recoiled from the sight of this face? Or was it when I first discovered the hope that you might actually love me? I don't know what began it. I know only what I was driven to and the damage that I caused."


	26. 26

The walk home was unsteady but peaceful. It was the same sort of quiet exhaustion that he had felt after tearing a room apart, except that he would not have to clean up later. Erik was too wrung out to try to suss out what he thought about what had happened beyond surprise and a bit of giddiness. He had never previously noticed how walking could have a sexual rhythm to it, or breathing. It made him want to write.

The house was silent when he got home, so he tried not to make any sound. One advantage of stone—it did not creak. But when he sat, quill in hand, he could not bring the notes to order. He set his mask on the desk, but the paper only blurred before his tired eyes. Just when he was ready to acknowledge defeat and go to bed, he heard a soft knock, then Christine's voice telling him not to bother as he reached for his mask. He was too tired to argue, too tired for defiance. Too tired even to be embarrassed by his damned watery eye.

When she finally let him sit, he could hardly listen to what she was saying, although he was gratified by the sentiment. That habit of pulling at her fingers was horrible, and he finally had to ask her to stop. He was so exhausted—it seemed impossible that they would be having this conversation in the middle of the night. He had driven himself mad with wanting Christine and was trying to explain it, even on this night when he had finally learned exactly what he had been wanting. Ironies heaped upon ironies. He was too worn for anger but apparently not for bitterness.

"Oh, Erik."

He had not thought about it—she had never before said his name. Had he ever even told it to her? He had not previously cared what anyone called him, but in her voice, the two syllables were like a caress. Earlier she had said that she would go abroad. Would that finally set him free?

There were shadows under her eyes, and they, along with her loose hair and dark rose–colored robe, made her look fragile and young. She smiled a little.

"Isn't it strange, how I never knew your name?"

He nodded. "There is much between us that has been strange."

She smiled again, but sadly.

"Do you know? I never made the connection between you and the Opéra Ghost. I thought you really were an angel, until you drew me through the mirror." She shook her head. "I suppose I was very stupid about it."

"No," he said. "You cannot think so. I never told you otherwise."

Despite that, it was strange to think that, for all those years, she had never thought of him as a person. In the middle of the night, in his weariness and the strange peace that accompanied it, he was able to speak to her.

"I suppose I treated you much the same way. All thought of your voice, your career, my music. Thinking that you were mine to possess and control, no matter what you might have wanted." It amazed him that the words sounded so easy. Surely this meant that the darkness was still his friend.

Christine was everything lovely in the faint candlelight. She leaned toward him with luminous eyes. She had to go soon or he was in great danger of going mad all over again. Her mouth, he remembered, actually tasted of roses.

"No," she said, her hands clasped together. "No. As strange and frightening as those last months were, for years before that you were my friend, my guide, sometimes my only comfort. Erik. I have not forgotten that."

How strange, because he had.

"I am glad of that," he said softly. "I would be miserable if you hated me, no matter how much reason you have to do so."

Was it just hours ago that she had hissed at him in rage and he had felt that his heart was again torn in two? He knew that he was changed by all that had happened in between—what had changed in her? She leaned forward and briefly touched his hand.

"I have been afraid of the same thing," she whispered, to his amazement. "I felt sure you must."

"I don't think I could hate you if I tried," he said, his own voice rough with exhaustion and emotion. "I was heartbroken and angry, certainly, but I never could hate you."

He barely knew this man who spoke so calmly of his most secret feelings to her. It was a relief. How stunning, that she sat and actually listened to him. That she did not hate him. There was a miracle in itself. From here, he could go forward into this new life of atonement.

Then, without warning, he gave a great yawn, and Christine grinned.

"It is a strange conversation to be having in the middle of the night," she said.

"Indeed. But Christine, I thank you for it. It is more than I ever would have hoped, that we could speak to one another of what is in our hearts."

She nodded. "I'm glad too," she said, and they bid each other goodnight as if they were perfectly normal people.

Back in his room, he was very glad to pull off his sticky clothes and fall into bed. His brain was fuzzy with tiredness. He would have thought it all a dream, except for that stickiness and some tenderness in his palms from their being pressed against the wall. So if that was not a dream, that black-eyed woman who opened her body to him, the other must also be true. Christine did not hate him. As stunning as that was, it was not her he thought of as he dropped quickly into sleep.


	27. 27

She woke late again, with a greater sense of peace. Christine was amazed at herself, that she had found a way to sit and talk to him calmly, as she had wanted, and to look unflinchingly at that sad, strange face. Over the course of one conversation, he had changed for her. He was no longer the Angel. He was Erik.

This, of course, meant that everything she knew about him might be wrong. To be a child of tragedy, a reclusive genius, was much different from a guiding spirit. The Angel would never have been so miserable over causing havoc—such havoc, such disarray. It was soothing to have the ritual of dressing, to make it seem as if she would have a normal day. But she no longer feared what would happen, what they might say to one another.

Mme. Giry was again knitting in the parlor, with the curtains drawn open to allow in the light of a beautiful day. She said nothing when Christine entered, and Christine had a pang of guilt. She knew nothing of the accord they had come to.

"Is Erik awake?" Christine asked her, and Madame's surprise was evident as she shook her head. Christine sat and took a deep breath.

"I am sorry," she said, "for how I acted the past two days. I've turned everything on its head."

Madame nodded. "That you have, my dear."

Christine could only shake her head. Mme. Giry was as immovable as ever.

"I talked to him last night," she said. "To Erik." Madame's eyebrows shot upward. "It was a good beginning."

Mme. Giry smiled at her and patted her knee. "A good beginning. I am very glad to hear you say that. Very glad for you both. It seems to me that you have a great deal to discuss."

Christine nodded. "I think so. Already I feel so much better. After the first shock of his being alive, I was so sure he must hate me."

Madame laughed. Christine, as a member of the ballet corps who was frequently in trouble, had not actually known that Mme. Giry laughed.

"Hate you, child! He could not hate you if he tried!"

Christine grinned. "That's just what he said." After a moment, her smile faded with a new thought. "It sounded as if he did try."

"Can you blame him?" Madame asked.

She thought about that, in light of knowing that he had heard everything on the rooftop, all those months ago, how she had railed against him, all the things she and Raoul had said to one another. She had already felt badly enough for so many things, the screams of the audience most of all.

"No," she said finally. "I cannot blame him for that."

After a while, Mme. Giry went out, and Christine was left to her own thoughts, to the pages of a novel she had already read. She found herself eager for Erik to come to her, and it was like the anticipation of years past, waiting for her Angel, except that all sense of awe was gone. She felt that she could talk to him for years and not say half of what she wanted. But where would the time come from? She couldn't stay in this house, trying to keep Meg from stealing all the blankets, for long. The more she thought about it, she realized that she didn't even want to. Her heart had settled on going abroad. Where and how soon were the only questions remaining.

The maid brought tea for her, and she was able to coax out the girl's name, but nothing else. She was like a shy rabbit, ready to bolt at any moment. It was fitting, somehow. What a strange house, full of refugees and madmen, yet it was a haven of sorts. For those months at Aunt's house, she had mourned the turmoil of the Angel's life and all the pain he had both caused and endured. All she had learned from Mme. Giry compounded this feeling that he had always suffered, but now he had safety and friends. He could not hate her if he tried.

Christine smiled down into her cup. It was silly how much joy that gave her, that he was living in the world and not thinking ill of her. There had been a couple of times the night before when something like the old ardor had been in his eyes. She told herself firmly that it would be good to go soon. If he had found some peace, she did not want to destroy it. Surely she would only cause him more pain, if the past two days were any indication. She never had known what she wanted, as far as he was concerned. While he had been the Angel, she had wished for him to be flesh and blood, a man to protect her, to care for her, and she had imagined that if he were real he would be like Papa—someone whose embrace would block out all hurtful things.

Then he had pulled her through the mirror, and he _was_ a man, but also the Opéra Ghost, whose frights kept the dormitories awake and squeaking on many nights. She shivered at the memory—candles and chill, confusion, and through it all that voice in her ear. She had to smile a little in hindsight. For so long he had cajoled her to sing with her whole heart; it would have been easiest if he had said, "Sing like me." And he had put his hands on her, his huge, powerful hands that were yet kept from her by that annoying leather. She remembered that she would not have been able to speak had she tried, that it was difficult to get enough air, that she had felt dizzy and hot, that the unsettling mannequin with her face had been a horrid, cold shock.

Christine was aware of clattering in the hallway as she remembered all of this, but the pull of memory was stronger than curiosity. Waking in such a cold, strange place. The Angel at his keyboard, and she thought now that it was her first glimpse of Erik; the shy way that he had turned his face away from her had filled her with tenderness. She had forgotten all of this in the tumult that followed. She had never touched a man's face in such a way, exploring the texture of warm skin and cool leather, a faint scratchiness of beard, the slickness that told her he wore a wig. His face had looked almost frightened, tenuous but naked with yearning.

It was because she had wanted to touch more of him that she pulled off the mask. Her recoil had been surprise more than anything, having never before considered that there was a physical reason for his wearing it. Then he pushed her, and his anger had been so frightening. She had had only the briefest glimpse before he tore away from her—imagination had distorted her memory of his poor face, such that, on the final night, even as the audience screamed, she had been surprised that it was so less bad than she remembered.

She felt light-headed. These were memories tinged by so much confusion. Christine thought of their conversation the night before and wished that she had had such presence of mind the first night. After she pulled his mask away, how different could it have been if she had thought to say something kind? The world might be an entirely different place.

The door opened, and she jumped. There he was, his cheek red and damp hair pulled back, in a deep green waistcoat that made his eyes fairly glow. Already, the world had indeed changed.


	28. 28

To sleep without dreams and wake refreshed was still a novel sensation. To dream and yet wake with a sense of peace was entirely new. Even more strange, they were not entirely sanguine dreams—the woman against the wall had become Christine, and the memory of her dream self tossing her head and sighing his name made him blush hotly, but his suspension of despair remained. He did not think of it as hope, but it was certainly welcome.

Nonetheless, he was sticky and stiff, and despite his sleeping well into the day, his eyes felt gritty. Ringing Aimée for a bath was a sketchy proposition—she still occasionally behaved as if he might open his mouth and swallow her whole—but it must be done. A bath always made him think that he had been a barbarian his entire life. God knows he was no fit company for the world, no matter how sane he felt, but this thought no longer had the power to torment him. He knew what it was to make love to a woman. He had two friends, had discovered that he could walk a city street in daylight and be in no danger. Christine had twice kissed his mouth, and she did not hate him. There was enough music in these to keep him busy all his days, no matter how long he might live. Now that he had a last name, he might even publish some of it.

If only he had been able to think such things before he had tried to destroy the entire world. As it was, these thoughts had taken long enough for the water to grow cold. In the world aboveground, not every day was the same. This day held a newness like birth.

He felt oddly comfortable in his skin, and noticing this made his belly clench and his breath catch. The memory of his dark-eyed seductress was a constant purr in the background. If the score had survived the fire, he would've wanted to rewrite some of the lyrics in _Don Jan._ But no matter—there would be more songs, more operas. When he opened the door to the sitting room, there was Christine, aglow in the morning sun.

She smiled at him. He wanted to stop the moment and repeat it forever: she smiled at him. Except then the held out her hand, and he was across the room before he could blink, to take those slim fingers in his own and kiss her cool skin. Torment all over again, but so sweet. He had to sit down. The jasmine scent of her skin dizzied him.

"They've all gone out," Christine said. "There's tea. Would you like some?"

He nodded. She had acquired polish during her months in the country; he told her so. She blushed prettily as she handed him his cup.

"I learned a great deal from Aunt."

Even as he had once thought that he knew her very soul, it seemed that there was much he did not know.

"I was not aware that you had any family living."

Her face was so mobile and animated—when she returned to the stage, no one could accuse her of typical diva strutting. The beauty of her voice so often caused him to forget that. Erik struggled with himself. His mind was too full.

"Oh no," she said. "Not my aunt. She was some sort of Chagny cousin."

And she told him the most adorable story of being shunted off to the country and a shabby, genteel lady who was kind to her.

"I had no idea of the sorts of things girls are supposed to learn! I felt quite useless at the beginning. But I enjoyed everything she taught me."

There were happy memories, too, mixed in with the sadness.

"You were always an eager student."

She smiled. "Aunt taught me a little German. she was surprised that I knew how to pronounce the words, even though I didn't understand them. Apparently you taught me well."

"I'm very glad to hear it."

To listen to her was like the very early days, when she had chattered at him like any lonely child. Now, though, he listened. Surely that was one of the greatest gifts of growing older, the he had learned to pay attention. That had made everything possible, from blackmail to the subtle manipulations that had so awed her.

"And it was so lovely, to be far—" she stopped.

This could not rile him, not now.

"Far away from everything? Yes. I know that I have found these months of quiet to be very illuminating."

Her face was closed off, eyes on the floor.

"Yes."

This new hidden expression of hers made him uncomfortable. If he could not read her thoughts, he would have to rely on her speaking of them, and their history of that was not promising. After a moment, a fleeting smile crossed her face, and she met his eyes.

"There is so much I want to say, and so many questions that I want to ask, that I don't know where to begin."

Antoinette was right. They were each worse than the other.

"I heartily agree."

He felt sure that he could not ask about the Chagny boy. It was too dangerous. Any misery on her part would only double in his heart, and he would suffer for his own sake as well as hers.

"May I ask you something?" she said abruptly.

"Of course."

"How did you make the arms move on the walls?"

It was a disconcerting question.

"I don't know what you mean."

He loved the way she tilted her head to one side when she was perplexed. It was endearing, but the line of her neck was also accentuated, a gorgeous flow of white skin.

"Down in the tunnel," she said, "after _Hannibal._ When my dressing room filled with mist and you drew me through the mirror. It was magical, all of those lights."

Certainly the darkness of the tunnel had been lifted by her beauty, but that had been the extent of it. He hated to see the confusion in her eyes when he told her this.

"I don't understand," she said.

"Nor do I. I had trip wires and traps through some of the tunnels, but no tricks like that."

"But I remember it." She shook her head. "It's so clear. Are you saying that I made it up?"

Was there any right way to answer this?

"No. I'm saying that I do not understand."

In years past, she had ridden the waves of her own emotions, buffeted by her feelings like any young girl. As he watched her struggle for control, Erik saw that she had grown up through all their troubles. She mastered herself—her face cleared and her hands unfolded themselves. Even since the night before, she had grown. What a formidable woman she would be.

"How is this possible?" she asked.

"I don't know."

She frowned darkly. Her fingers twisted together briefly, and he thought his heart would fold in on itself when she glanced at him, blushed, and drew her hands apart. Yet he had no idea what to say to her. He knew that he was capable of madness, but her imaginings disturbed him.

"What about the cemetery?" she asked, and it seemed like just another question flying at him sideways. That had been an awful, humiliating day.

"What about it?"

"What I remember is that my father's tomb was alight, that the doors opened to me, and that there was a glow like fire on the inside. Did you do this?"

"I did not."

He could not think what she meant by it. They were both times when he had sought to beguile her, but surely his power was not such to make her hallucinate. That was absurd. It was also a comfort that she too had been caught up in the strange magic of those days. The music of the time still hummed through him—still urgent but no longer overwhelming. Now he thought of it, that was the only thread he knew that ran through both days.

"Music," he said, and she stared at him. "It is what ties them together."

She examined her knees for a moment, then nodded.

"It's very strange, but you're right," she said. "I remember these lights, but mixed in with all of it—" was he imagining that deep blush?—"You were singing to me."

It was true. Nine months, six months earlier, it would have been a great triumph, to learn that his voice could have such power over her. He would have used it to terrible purpose. The temptation was very great, even still. Considering, of course, that the theory was sound.

It was strange to him that the song that came to mind was not his own music, nor was it even a love song. His voice was rough with disuse as he sang to her the Swedish lullaby that Christine had sung to herself that first day, all those years ago.


	29. 29

Her confusion vanished—it winked out like a snuffed candle. She had worked hard as a dancer, but her heart had never been in it. Her greatest joy lay in the music, in bending her body to the demands of rhythm. When the Angel first began to teach her sing, a fire lit in her brain, in her soul. Just as Papa had always said about himself, it was the music she was made for. They had sung many duets together, she and the Angel, but it was not until the night of her debut that he had sung to her, expressly for her, like a gift.

It was strange to her how few people seemed to share her physical experience of music. Sound caressed her skin like an invisible hand. In the hands of a master, it could be any instrument, but voice was best, followed by strings. Oh, but his voice was better than them all. It had always been so. Even though she could tell that he had not sung in a long time, his voice still had power. Her eyelids fluttered heavily, and her breath caught in her throat. Her fingers curled over her knee, and the room did seem to be alight. If she hadn't been so entranced, she'd have laughed at herself for feeling such pleasure, of all places, in her ears.

How long had it been? Since the night of the opera. She had very nearly chucked the whole plan and gone with him, just to hear that gorgeous voice rolling over her, embracing her, until all other thought receded. She tried to breathe, but her corset was too tight, and the skin of her neck ached to be touched. She shifted in her chair. It was too much like Raoul's hands on her, his mouth at her throat. The difference was that she could lose herself in this song, as she never had with Raoul.

Was this the danger, then, that she would be lost? There would be no disturbing mannequin to shock her to herself. Christine fought to bring her mind to order, and she realized that the song was familiar. His inflection was all wrong, and she smiled to know that he must be singing phonetically. How many years had it been since she last spoke her native tongue? What a marvel that he would sing this to her.

"Erik," she said, and heard the sigh in her own voice. Clearly, he had watched her closely—his eyes were wide, dark with intent, and he was leaning toward her. It would be so easy to fall, to go back into those depths, and let him inform her world. And yet. Yet. She made herself remember Mme. Giry's story of his childhood. She made herself remember the expression in those eyes when she had unmasked him to the crowd. "I cannot hurt him again," she thought. "Even if it means that I go away forever."

The lullaby was done, and she met his eyes with a frankness that made him blush and look away. How had she never seen how much of his menace was bluster? He was like a wild creature, wanting to be tamed but so wary. The way he moved, he would be some great cat. This thought, and that of his voice purring with pleasure, brought her own blush. She wanted to smack herself. This silence was going on far too long.

"I must be a romantic," she said, and his sidelong glance told her nothing. "I don't know whether I should feel foolish, that your voice affects me so."

He frowned at her. "Don't," he said.

"Don't what?"

"Do not feel foolish," he said after a pause. "It is who you are."

She reached for his teacup and refilled it, though the tea in the pot was barely warm. She needed something to busy her hands.

"I suppose that is true," she said. "I learned that from my father."

He nodded, then stared down as if some answer was to be found in a cup of cold tea.

"You are very lucky to have had him."

Her heart twisted in sympathy.

"Do you remember your parents?"

The muscles in his neck clenched and relaxed.

"I never met my father," he said, and when he looked up at her his eyes were so bleak they were nearly white. "But I remember my mother."

Had he known any joy in his life? That she had added to his misery made Christine want to cry, or to rail at herself—to do _something._ How did one apologize for breaking someone's heart? Especially this heart, already in tatters, but capable of such beauty. _Don Juan_ had not been beautiful—the music was too weird, and Christine had known that the plot's indictment of women was a direct comment to her. But she had heard the music he wrote when he was transfigured by inspiration, and it was the sort of beauty that broke her apart and put her back together in a new way, a beauty that made her feel as if she could be noble, could be something bigger than herself. If not for that face, he could have changed the world. And at the bottom of it, the face was not so very bad, not when coupled with such a spirit, even wounded as it was.

She reached for his hand, took it both her own, ignored his shuddering breath. Had anyone ever comforted him? She stroked his fingers gently. Surely no one else in the world had such long fingers, finely tapered but strong. She smiled over the ink stains. The more she looked, the more she smiled, for he must've been a very untidy composer—he had black splotches on his fingertips, on his palm, all the way to his wrist. When she touched the thin skin there, mapped with veins, he made a small noise in the back of his throat.

His eyes were wide as he stared at her, mouth parted, and the stiffness of his back made her think that at any moment he would tear himself away and disappear. Christine laid her hands more firmly over his and squeezed a little. Fractionally, he relaxed. She wanted him to know that she understood, that she was no longer the ignorant girl who had found it so easy to hurt him.

"Madame told me yesterday of how she found you," she said, and she did not let go when he tried to pull his hand away. It was as if one of his great iron portcullises had slammed down over his face.

"I cannot imagine how horrible it must have been." He tugged at his hand, but she held on. "I know how miserable I was to become an orphan, but how much worse for you."

He gave up pulling, but his stare was fixed on the wall, so all she could see was impassive leather and stone jaw.

"There is so much I didn't understand," she said, finally letting his hand go.

He turned from her, still staring at the wall, and it seemed like years before he spoke again.


	30. 30

She could not know what she was doing to him, that he felt as if he was being tugged about like a marionette. She could not know this hot bitterness coursing through him at being an object of her pity. Worse than this, he did not want her to see that his hands were shaking, his heart racing, and he would not have stood up for anything in the world. His voice might make her voice flush with pleasure, but the merest touch of her hand and he was rock hard, aching for her. "God, I'm a fool," he thought. He stared at the wall and willed his pulse to slow, his jaw to unclench.

But her face—as he sang to her, she had worn an expression like a wanton, eyes heavy-lidded and cheeks flushed. It was beauty like the blade of a knife—one misstep and he would be cut in two. That she could have looked at him so afterward, unashamed and entirely open, was a mystery. What did she mean by it? Then to stroke his hand, to hold onto him when he tried to draw away. Surely it was friendship and nothing else. That was enough of a gift. It must be enough.

From the corner of his eye he glanced over at her. Had her eyes ever before been so clear? She was no longer the half-hysterical child he had manipulated with magic tricks and song. Of course, he was no longer the mostly suicidal blackmailer creeping around in dust and shadow just to catch a glimpse of her. It was the most difficult—the second most difficult—thing to sit here with her. He knew how to pine, how to plot, how to suffer. All he knew of conversations he had learned in the past three months, and Meg usually carried both topic and the bulk of actual talking. Yet he had wished for this. That it was strange and awkward did not make it any less welcome, so he would have to soldier through.

"Forgive me," he said finally, then had to clear his throat. "I am not well versed in conversation."

"I know," she said. "I know, Erik."

He had to close his eyes as heat surged over him at the sound of her voice saying his name.

"I must—" he said, at the same time she said, "I want to—" and they stopped in unison.

"Please," he said.

"I want to tell you how sorry I am for everything that happened. For all that I did."

Why did she keep apologizing to him? He blurted this out, along with, "I am a blackmailer. A murderer. A selfish brute. Mad. And you say that you are sorry?" He shook his head.

"You were not always mad," she said softly. "This time last year, you were not a murderer."

He whipped his head around to glare at her. "You said Giry told you of my childhood," he snarled. "So you know that is not true."

She had never before had such stillness. It was as if she had decided absolutely never to be afraid of him again.

"She said that he beat you," she said, and he could not hold her eyes. He had never spoken of this to anyone. Not once. He had tried to forget.

"Yes."

"She said he treated you like an animal."

Oh, it had been worse than that, but he would never tell anyone. Beaten by his keeper, by anyone who'd pay a centime for the privilege. Starvation. Those other, worse things for which he had no name. His fingernails dug into his palms. His entire torso ached.

There had been so many times when he had dreamed of this very thing, that she knelt beside him and laid her hand on his arm. Of course, in those fantasies she had declared her love to him. At this moment, the comfort was better. No one had ever tried to soothe him before—even Giry never quite knew what to do with him, having been a child herself. She had let him clutch her hand, but she had never tried to embrace him. Yet here was Christine—his own Christine—who had held his hand, who laid her hand on his arm and looked up at him with tears standing in her eyes.

"You cannot call that murder," she said. "Madame said he would have killed you."

That was very true. They would not have been able to keep him as he grew. He nodded miserably. Her hand moved so slowly down his arm, elbow to wrist, over and over. Erik closed his eyes and focused on the rhythm of it, let it calm him.

"My poor Angel," she said. "And I was so unkind."

He had to shake his head.

"Why do you persist in trying to blame yourself? I alone am at fault. If I had not thought of you as mine." He could not sit and say these things. He had to stand, to stalk the room, to put distance between himself and those mink-brown eyes.

"It was not reasonable. It wasn't fair. All those dolls I made of you, and you were just one of them, mine to mold and control." The window looked out on a sunny day, but he could only see a damp, candlelit cave, two men in battered clothes, and a girl dressed as a bride. Words broke out of him like a howl.

"If I had lost you in any other way I could have borne it. If you had been taken away by music, by duty—but I could never compete with a perfect face. The one thing I could never have, the one thing that has always defeated me." He sank into his desk chair. Three sentences had worn him out utterly.

"It did not matter how much beauty I created for you. It did not matter that I would have done anything, been anything. At the end of it, I am still a monster, just as I have been told for my entire life."

She was standing close to him again, her hands clasped together at her waist. Absurdly, he wondered when she had begun wearing such rich colors. They became her better than the white she had used to wear.

"Why did you send me away?" she asked, and the quaver in her voice surprised him. He looked up, and tears were streaming down her cheeks. He felt so hollow.

"You kissed me," he said. "I can count on one hand the number of women I have touched in my life. You know what I was. You know what I am. To show me that I am not alone? It was the only thing I wanted. No one else has ever touched my face with gentleness. It broke my madness, and I was able to see that I could not make you stay. To what? To live in darkness all your days with a murdering beast? And I knew that I could not touch you with these bloodstained hands." He looked up again.

"I almost thought, when you came back with your ring, that you had come to stay."

Then, miracle of miracles, she put her arms around him. As he pressed his face into her waist and wept for her, Christine bent over him with one arm around his shoulders, her hand stroking his hair.


	31. 31

Christine bent over him, her arms around him, and her own tears dripped down into his hair. Raoul had worn a very fine cologne; Erik smelled only of himself, which was a little like wood smoke and a little like the memory of some great comfort. His shoulders continued to shake as she held him, as she ran her fingers through his hair. She could make any excuse for him, she found—he had suffered so much. "How cruel I have been," she thought, and she knew that much of what had attracted her about Raoul was in fact his handsome face. His calm rationality had seemed restful. And he had known Papa. The one thing Erik could never be. She held him tighter, miserable at her own faithlessness, that it had taken so much pain for her to see who he was.

After a time, Erik pulled away, not looking at her, and drew a large handkerchief from his pocket. She turned to the hearth and pulled her own handkerchief from her sleeve. Her heart was oddly lighter. Despite all the tears of these few days, the past year made so much more sense. And it had not been that he changed his mind. He had sent her away for her own sake. Christine brushed at the large wet spot on the front of her dress and told herself that she would never be able to say it to him—had she known that he would not deny her, she would have stayed when she went back at the end.

So many chances lost. He was starting to find peace here, and she would not jeopardize that for anything. She herself had the chance to build her own life. Their time was past, but at least they would go forward having reconciled with one another. The wet spot at her waist was not going to dry any time soon. She was able to produce a little smile as she turned to him.

"I think I shall have to change."

He looked at her with a faint twist to his mouth.

"And I may have ruined this mask. Forgive me."

She kept finding herself standing close to him, reaching for him.

"Of course I do," she said. "I hope that you will forgive me."

She shivered a little when he took her hand, kissed her knuckles.

"Freely and fully," he said.

Back in her room, Christine gratefully splashed water on her hot face, loosened her corset, and laid down with a sigh. As good as it was to be resolving the mysteries of the past, everything was exhausting. There had been too little sleep and too many tears the past few days. She felt very young, tremulous, to think of the two men who had loved her so—one a brave, rescuing knight, and the other a wounded genius, both of them willing to tear themselves to pieces for her sake. What had she ever done to deserve it? She was merely an orphaned singer of some beauty who could barely darn her own stockings. Her only remarkable talents were the ability to read music and to hit a G two octaves above middle C.

Here she was, leaving them both behind. Whatever lay ahead, surely it would be more peaceful than what was behind her. She had had enough drama for a lifetime. It must be her own sense of melodrama that made it seem so tempting to stay, to try to find a way to heal Erik's shredded heart. If he even wanted her—which was doubtful, if he had any sense of self-preservation. No. She would keep reminding herself to go, and the distance would prove itself.

She fell asleep and dreamed again, for the first time in many months, of water. She was no longer drowning—rather, she floated, surrounded by its coolness, and there was a sense of a huge cavern all around her. Music seemed just out of hearing, but she could feel it in her bones, on her skin, as if what she floated in was not water after all but pure song.

Christine woke to a sense of fading light. Her dress was dry but crumpled, and she hoped that Aimée would be up to washing something so delicate. She dressed herself in another gown, one more formal (since it was evening) that showed a little shoulder. Madame Giry would probably tease her, but it wasn't as if she had many sensible clothes. The green would complement Erik's waistcoat beautifully, unless he had changed too. She took her blue gown down to Aimée, who mostly gaped at her but handled the dress as if she knew her business.

Mme. Giry was in the sitting room, and she rolled her eyes when Erik stood at Christine's entrance. He was still wearing that becoming green, but straightened and tidy. A small, bright fire was crackling in the hearth, and they each had a tiny glass of some brown liquid.

"How was your day out?" she asked, sitting in the free chair, next to Madame and so across from Erik.

"It was a gorgeous day. You were both very foolish to have stayed inside." Christine was coming to prefer this teasing, wry Madame, so different from her stern mistress.

"But as autumn is coming, Erik and I are comforting our old bones with some sherry. Will you join us?"

Christine nodded. "I've never had it."

"As well you should not," Erik rumbled as he went to the sideboard to pour. "Alcohol dries the vocal cords. It is no good thing for one's voice. However, as you have no engagements at present, I will allow you this exception." His eyes, as he handed her a glass, were bright and calm.

"Oh, God save us if you're going to order her about again," Madame groaned, and he made a neat bow before he sat.

"I would never dare," he said. "I've found these past few days that our Mlle. Daae has quite surpassed me in strength of will."

Christine began to wonder if they were both a little drunk. She sipped her sherry—it was sweeter than she had expected, with a creaminess about it and a nice almost-smell of wood that lingered in her mouth. After her second sip, she decided that she liked it.

Erik and Madame were talking comfortably to one another of household matters, the weather, neighborhood gossip. Christine was content to burrow into her chair and listen, to hold the small glass in her fingertips. She watched him, she hoped surreptitiously. He wore a different mask, one that molded less closely to his face and had a less clear expression than his usual one. She was interested by the difference it made—his face seemed much less elegant, but it was also softer and more kind without that permanent white scowl. She remembered thinking earlier that he was like a cat, and he certainly seemed so now, lounging in his chair with those mile-long legs stretched toward the fire, ankles crossed. As he talked, he moved his hands like a conductor. He grace made her feel gawky by comparison.

They had her grinning after a few minutes, they way they gossiped like old women and kept referring to themselves as "ancient" and "old and tired." Despite the risk of bringing up even more unpleasant subjects, her curiosity was too great.

"How old are you, Erik?"

He did frown, but just a little, and he shrugged. "Older than you and younger than Antoinette is the best I can say."

"Bah!" Madame said. "You are no more than five years younger than I, which would make you 33, so do not pretend that you are barely out of childhood like Christine."

He saluted her with his glass.

"I cannot argue with your excellent logic, Madame."

Mme. Giry snorted, and Christine giggled. She liked them both so much like this, relaxed and sardonic. They would be perfectly fine without her. Then Meg came clattering through the door, and all was made even brighter.


	32. 32

Even with his head pounding from so many tears, Erik felt as if the weight of ages had been lifted from him. He sat in his room for a while with a wet cloth pressed to his face, and when his eyes cleared and his head felt better, he found that his mask was not ruined after all. Cleaning and oiling soon set it to rights, and he pulled out another to wear while it dried. Funny that he had, without thinking, made spares, as soon as they were settled. Yet he had given up the wigs. And no one fled from him in the street.

His brain was brimming, so within the hour he was back at his desk with a new quill cut and notes laying themselves down as fast as his hand could move. Surely perfect pitch was God's kindest gift to a composer. The piece, which seemed to be shaping into a string quartet, was so alive in itself that he had room left over to think.

He had said very nearly every awful thing in his heart, and she had not run from him. She had not scorned him. She had put her arms around him and held him close, so for the second time in 24 hours he had found consolation in a woman's arms—he, the monster. When he was mad, she had spurned him, she had plotted his ruin. But now she stood near him. She held him close to her and ran her fingers through his hair. The cello line deepened, even as the first violin soared over a gently pizzicato viola and second violin. Two dark-eyed women, and his past resolving itself into a present that might admit a future. He felt he could sleep for a year, except for all the writing.

Erik reminded himself that she would leave, but the pang of it held no despair. Through all their tears, he had found a sort of reconciliation. His past was what it was, and she forgave him. So, too, he forgave her. She was so young, and he knew so little of the world—it could never have ended well.

By the time Giry returned home, he was most of the way through a third piece, his fifth quill, and his hand was starting to cramp. He felt almost giddy, what with exhaustion, emotion, composition, and—he realized—having eaten almost nothing all day. Giry was in a strange, joyous mood, so it was very welcome to pull out their one bottle of good sherry and enjoy the fire.

And Christine. Christine in green, with the flames pulling glints of gold from her hair. He was so light-headed that he even teased her gently, as he had just begun to do with Meg and Giry this month past. He hardly knew himself. If he was not hated and feared, who was he? Perhaps a simple composer. The manners that demanded he sit with them until after supper were occasionally inconvenient.

Erik was not so outside himself as to be resentful when Meg arrived and talk turned to all things female. She was in raptures over Christine's dress, with which he quite agreed, and he caught Giry's amused glance several times over dinner as the girls planned their grand shopping trip, two days hence.

"Maman, you will come, won't you?" Meg asked, and Giry sighed.

"I suppose I must, or poor Christine will have no travel money when you are done."

They had both grinned, but he saw that when Christine looked over at him, her smile faltered slightly. He made note to reassure her when he could. Of course he would prefer for her to be near him always, but he was resigned. He could see the wisdom of it, and not just for her. The potential for danger was very great, no matter how much they talked, no matter how much they had changed.

And after dinner they pulled the chairs close together by the fire. It was such an adorable arrangement that he risked a joke.

"Oh no, thank you. I much prefer to sit by the cold window and suffer for my art."

Meg giggled and Giry snorted, but it was Christine who answered him.

"You poor old thing! Shall we fetch you a lap rug and a hot-water bottle? Or perhaps a footstool to keep your feet out of the draft?"

He felt sure that Heaven would be like this, even as they laughed at him. The constant giggling in the background could not quell the tide of music that had risen in him. He ran out of staves and had to draw more, which was rarely anything but an irritation. It was while he was drawing that he heard the phrase "travel money" again, and Christine cried out,

"Oh, but it's so confusing! I could go anywhere, so how am I to decide?"

This was a topic of great interest. Drawing staves suddenly seemed like just the thing.

"I believe you are right, my dear, that the great houses are closed to you," Giry said after a pause.

"Yes. So that means I can count out London, Rome, Berlin, and Lisbon. That leaves the rest of the world! I mean, surely they won't have heard of this in America."

The very thought was ice in his veins.

"Not America!" Meg cried. "You can't go so far! Why, we'd never see you again!"

Bless Meg.

"No, you're right," Christine said. "It does seem an entirely foreign place. So not America."

Erik gave up trying to pretend that he wasn't listening and turned in his chair. Christine looked up and beckoned him over. How could he refuse? He carried his chair closer and sat.

"I've heard the opera in St. Petersburg is very fine," Giry said. Christine looked at him.

"I have heard the same, but they are reported to be a very rigorous company," he said. "Also, I have heard less than savory things about the Tsar."

"And Russian politics are even worse than our own. They're always breaking out into one war or another."

Christine nodded. "I hadn't thought of that."

"Are you sure about Lisbon?" he asked. "Their reputation is not what it was. They might be willing to overlook a little scandal, given your talent."

She shook her head.

"I don't want to take the chance," she said. "The money I have won't last forever, so the more quickly I can get somewhere and start working, the better."

"Budapest?" Meg ventured.

"Certainly they are far enough off the map, but I know nothing of them," he said.

"Nor I," Giry added, "although I have met a few very fine dancers from Hungary."

"I was considering Vienna," Christine said.

"Their company barely functions. You would be singing _lieder_ in coffeehouses to make your way," he said, and she wrinkled her nose in distaste.

"Ah, that's right," Giry said. "They have that horrible patron."

Then he was struck with the perfect idea, but it saddened him, being so very far away.

"Have you thought of returning to Stockholm?"

The glimmer of excitement in her eyes was palpable.

"How could I have missed it? Is their opera any good?"

He shrugged.

"I've heard very little of them."

"The house is quite old, but small," Giry said. "They recently lured the ballet mistress from Salzburg and the conductor from Madrid, so there must be some potential." She stared shrewdly at Christine. "And given your name, you may be welcomed home as a daughter."

Tears stood in her eyes as Christine nodded. It was clear they all felt the wisdom of this decision. Erik was glad to have been the one to voice it.

"Stockholm, then," she said. "Home." He did not understand the phrase she added. Erik made note that he had to learn another language.


	33. 33

"How appropriate that he would find the perfect answer," Christine thought as she and Meg undressed for bed. Before his madness, he had always guided her well. She liked the symbolism of it, that all of their troubles could be bridged by all that he had taught her before and this final gift—the idea that would send her home. She would have to get used to the light again, those months of darkness and months of sun. She tried to think in Swedish. It was difficult after so many years, but she knew that it would come back to her. Her memories of Stockholm were dim, but they were all happy ones, of music, furs, and a great mass of candles making a golden puddle of light in the darkness.

Once she had fixed on a place, everything else fell together. Tomorrow she would make her travel arrangements. Friday she and Meg would have their shopping day. With any luck, on Saturday she would go. It left very little time to talk to Erik, but she found, as she laid in the dark, that for the moment, she was satisfied. In any case, to sit and listen to his voice was dangerous. He was too compelling. Just over the course of the day, she had felt her old breathlessness returning, and she kept wanting to stand close to him, to touch him, to stare into those mutable eyes.

She was not a religious person, but Christine prayed that night for God to protect her Angel, to help him find peace. Any such blessings did not extend to her, for it was not peace that she dreamed of, nor beginnings, nor even music. When she woke in the morning, her heart ached to realize that she had dreamt all night of the taste of Erik's mouth.


	34. 34

To my reviewers---it means the world to me that you are reading my story and taking the time to make suggestions and say that you like it. Thank you all so much.

Owlet

* * *

He sat up after the women had all gone to bed, but the music had been pushed aside by a nagging sense of something urgent, something that must be done before she left. Erik knew that he would mourn her going away, but he felt no despair about it. She would go forward and make something of herself. He felt sure that he would be able to read of her successes in the newspapers, even if she would not allow him to write to her.

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, to let his mind wander where it wanted in the hope that he would discover what it was he must do. Images from the past unfolded of those music lessons in the Chapel, Christine in her practice skirt and toe shoes, singing scales. Lighting a votive from a long taper—aha. There was nothing flammable in that room; perhaps it had survived.

Despite his earlier teasing, the night was too warm for a cloak, but he wore one anyway, for the veil of shadow it would draw around him. He was dressed all in shabby black and was careful to keep the pearlescent leather of his mask out of moonlight and lamplight. He grinned to himself as he strode silently through the shadows to the opera house. How easily the skills had come back to him of silent movement, of blending into the darkness.

The lamps were not even all lit around the derelict building—he imagined that it must be a hive of thieves and opium eaters. He skimmed the perimeter and found a grate that was not rusted shut. He slipped back into his old home.

Erik gulped in the scent of it—water, stone, greasepaint, and people, now overlaid with burnt wood. There was a host of soft pings and creaks that the building hadn't had before; he guessed that it was the sound of the building settling into further collapse. He heard nothing that sounded human.

It was tricky going, most of the time. He had a dark lantern to see by, but the debris cast weird shadows and much of it was unstable. Many times he was glad of his innate knowledge of every cranny, although it was strange to see things that had once been two stores above smashed on the floor before him. Still, within half an hour he had worked his way around and down to the chapel doorway. It was blocked by a pile of charred wood that looked to be broken seats and scrim frames. He pulled enough down to crawl into the chapel.

The angel windows had been smashed, so the room was no longer a cozy space—it was drafty, and the breeze made an eerie echo that he thought might come all the way from the lake. He considered whether it would be worth the time to try to crawl back to his home to see what might be salvaged. If he fell, or something fell on him, he would likely never be found, and the body of the Phantom would be buried in the ruins of his domain, just as everyone thought. Better to not risk it. He searched around the votive stand and found what he had sought. The glass was cracked, but the portrait of Christine's father was intact. He swept his cloak about himself and set about for home. Again the music rose in him, a lament for his ruined home, the clicking of the building's desolation its rhythm, the howl of the lake's wind its harmony.


	35. 35

Christine gave herself no time to dwell on her dreams; there was too much to do. She, Meg, and Madame had a hurried breakfast. Erik never arrived. She wanted to see him—those unsettling dreams had also been powerful and thrilling. But when she peeked into the sitting room, she knew that she would not even bother asking him to accompany them. He was at his desk, shirtsleeves rolled up, a pile of pages on the floor. His hand was moving rapidly across the page, and his head swayed in time with the rhythm only he could hear. She had wondered whether he had ever known joy—he was transformed by the music pouring from him into a beauty that certainly looked joyous.

Mme. Giry came to stand behind her, and when she looked back, she was gratified by the fondness she saw in the older woman's eyes.

"Wait here," she told Christine in a whisper. "I'll go make sure that Aimée feeds him today."

Christine was content to stand in the doorway and watch, but when he paused and laid his quill down, she was equally glad to step into the room and say hello.

"I had thought to invite you with us today, but I see that your muse has caught you."

He smiled.

"Indeed. Please forgive me."

"Oh, of course. You must write."

And Madame came in, pulling on her gloves.

"How are you fixed for paper, Erik? For ink?"

He rummaged briefly in his desk and declared himself satisfied. He was already bent again over the page when Christine turned to close the door.

There was so much to do. She had to get her papers in order, cash the Comte's check, withdraw her own small fund, buy a proper trunk. Madame's advice was invaluable. As she had hoped, they had time to go to the cemetery before the sun set.

Madame left her to go pay her own respects to M. Giry in another section. As the last time she had visited, Christine approached her father's tomb alone. As the last time, her mind was taken with thoughts of leaving behind her teacher. It did not seem as if she was leaving Papa behind—rather, she thought that she might find more of him in the city of her birth. She had for so long been bitter at Papa's patron, who had brought them to Paris, paid for this enormous mausoleum when he died, but left her with nothing more than a favor called in with M. Lefevre to let her in the ballet school.

How much of Papa would be left in Sweden? She deeply wished for another daguerreotype or a portrait—she missed his dear face. Perhaps it was not too much to hope for a cousin or a family friend. There was a possibility of rediscovering Papa; Erik she was definitively leaving behind. So many time she had nearly gone to him and pulled away, or been pulled away, at the last minute. Raoul had even nearly killed him, right here. She blushed to think of how she had thrown herself at Raoul that day, hysterical with fright. She had tried so many times to say goodbye to her Angel, until finally he had said goodbye to her and set her free.

Christine sat bolt upright on the steps of her father's tomb and laughed at herself. Set free! When she still sat here mooning over him like a girl. She _was_ a romantic, and she could only shake her head at herself. Even now, she could not keep her feelings straight from one moment to the next, drawn to the past but eager to go forward, wanting peace but also longing for the passion of two kisses a season ago, likely never to be repeated again. It would all be easier and more sensible when miles lay between them and their conversations were tempered by ink and delay. She would be able to cherish him for his own sake, without this schoolgirl's desire that could only hurt him in the end.

Their errands were done, and the afternoon sun slanted gold. One more day. By the time they got home, she was tired, but she had her train tickets in hand, all the way to Stockholm. Dinner was full of plots for the next day. Erik was quiet all evening, clearly tired from a full day's work; the stack of pages at the corner of the desk was several inches high. Christine fought with herself to quell the desire to have him lean against her, to stroke his brow with her thumb. "Thank God I'm leaving!" she thought. "I've quite lost my mind."

There were no kisses in her dreams. Instead, she was back in the labyrinth, now with stained-glass windows of angels at every turn, and she wandered lost, calling out for something that never answered. She forgot these dreams as soon as she opened her eyes.


	36. 36

Erik couldn't tell whether it was punishment or mercy that she should be gone so much, her last two days. He thought maybe it was just as well that they had no more opportunities to unpack the past and its various pains. Given that he was tied up in the rigors of composition, he also had no time to brood about it. There were so many melodies crowding his mind that he could barely keep up with himself. He worked all day—Aimée startled him twice by bustling in with a tray, and he had paced the room with a teacup in hand, humming to himself. By the time Christine and Giry returned, his brain was muzzy with exhaustion, such that the notes receded for a time and he could sit quietly and watch these women, each of whom was dear to him, peaceably and gladly.

He dreamed of nebulous things—two voices twined in duet, the echo of strings across a large body of water, glints of gold in dark hair, the taste of herbs steeped in alcohol. By morning, these had resolved themselves into song, and he was up early, back to work.

Meg had either worse manners than the other two or less of an appreciation of his music, for she forcibly dragged him to sit with them at breakfast.

"Christine's leaving tomorrow; you can't hole yourself up in here. You'll have all the time in the world when she's gone."

This was true, so he sat with them and listened as they plotted their day like a trio of generals bent on sacking the city. Meg was quivering with excitement; Giry and Christine were grinning at her in a way he had rarely seen on either face. Had things really been so bad, back at the Opéra? He hoped not, and he knew well enough not to ask. No one would want to spoil such joy.

As soon as they were out the door, he returned to his desk. He'd be all winter revising, at this point. Everything was trying to come out at once, and it was all he could do to keep themes from overlapping into a muddle.

Around midday, he was stuck on a line that would not make peace with itself, his hand was aching, and he was running low on paper and quills. There was nothing for it but a walk. The day was warm and perfect, and the rhythm of walking cleared his mind of its cobwebs. He could feel the notes in the background, beginning to bring themselves to order. He bought his paper and quills and wandered the narrow streets, beginning to hum to himself. He stopped for coffee but left the newspapers—politics would wait until after the music had let go a little. The drink's bitterness revived him somewhat. He was amused with himself that he did not even notice whether anyone stared at him; it was a great gift of his music that it distracted him from the misery of his own flesh. Erik looked down at his hands as they cradled the tiny coffee cup. There was nothing about his hands to elicit disgust. They were strong enough for hard labor, large enough to span more than an octave and a half, but capable of the delicate motions of lock-picking or drawing tails on eighth notes that were identical to one another, each with a tiny flourish that pleased his eye. They were old friends, his hands, no matter how ill he had used them. Perhaps the ink stains would some day obscure the blood.

He went into a book shop and poked about for a while. He was very pleased to find not only a Swedish dictionary but also a book of what looked to be fairytales, which would be useful for grammar. Back home, he placed these at the side of the desk as a sort of token. His melody had come together in his mind, so he was able to spend the rest of afternoon working easily and steadily.

Erik had lived with the Girys long enough to know that Meg would require him to look at all her purchases—and, if Fate was unkind, to hear about the fabric, the type of lace, and how many times she had had to bat her eyelashes to bring the price down two francs. She amused him, as she always had, but she quite wore him out. But as she had said, it was Christine's last day. When the day's light began to fade and he reached a good stopping point, Erik went to his room and dressed carefully for dinner, much as he had at the Opéra, in a lean, dark suit and a brocade waistcoat. For whatever reason, he found himself tying his cravats these days with a less extravagant knot. Despite his care, they still had not arrived, and it was nice to sit quietly with his book and let his mind relax. Somehow he had gotten through Christine's last two days without pain, without brooding. In the morning, she would go, and his quiet life would have a new quality to it, because he had been able to forgive her, to be forgiven by her. Now he could let her go with only a mild regret. Tonight he would have to look at her enough to last a lifetime. Sadness would be the counterpoint—with any luck, nearly hidden—but the theme would be to celebrate her, to send her off joyfully on her grand adventure.

There was a tremendous noise in the hallway that was punctuated by laughter. Erik stood to greet them, his dear ones, who had come home.


	37. 37

The last day. As last days went, Christine could not have asked for better. Meg had pulled Erik in to breakfast, where he had gazed at them bemusedly, obviously distracted by whatever music played in his head. Was it more strange to sit with him at a table and ask him to pass the butter or to think that she would never see him again? He, whom she had wished to see for years but never had until—what?—eight or so months ago. For so much to have happened in so short a time, no wonder she felt that she could sleep for a month.

They cut a wide swath through the fashion district, and Christine could not remember a day since Papa died when she had had such fun. Even Madame had gotten caught up in it, though she played the voice of reason all day. Meg would not have bankrupted her, but Madame was firm that Meg did not need three evening gowns and silk underthings.

"And if you are going to take advantage of your friend's generosity, you should buy some more toe shoes."

"But Maman, that's so boring!"

Christine bought her two pair. She also got a pair for herself, just in case. It was vexing how much they were limited to choosing fabrics and trim, and that she would not see any of these dresses on her friend. This was probably why they ended up buying so many stockings, hats, and gloves.

"How cold will it be in Stockholm when you get there?" Meg asked over tea.

"I don't remember. That's why I've bought so little for myself today—I don't know what the weather will be like at all."

"And I should imagine that the furs you will need for winter will be a good deal cheaper there," Madame said.

"That's my thought too. I'm sure it will all be very strange, especially to be going in autumn. By Christmas, there will be almost no daylight at all."

Meg shivered. "How gloomy."

"I hope not. I remember thinking as a little girl that it was lovely, all the candles in the darkness."

Madame's gaze was very level, and Christine thought of that vast cave underground, lit by golden candelabra. It had been the same sense of cold, of bright lights winking in a darkness that would not leave with morning. And a tall man, deep-voiced, whose music carried her deep inside herself, whose power protected her. Christine looked down into her cup, shaken. She had not ever thought of these parallels between Erik and Papa—not consciously, though she had often that the Angel, having been sent by Papa, was a sort of replacement. When had that changed? At some point, the music had begun to affect her differently, but it was not until he first touched her hand and then sang just for her that all thought of fatherliness disappeared. She had felt before then the sensation of her corset rubbing her breasts in a way not unpleasant, of a restlessness in that secret spot between her legs. When he sang to her, without being told she understood what she felt, and in that unreal place she had been unashamed of her desire. Had he not shown her that horrid bride doll, or had she reached for him later instead of handing over his mask, would she ever have left? But he had revealed his obsessiveness, then his fear disguised as rage, and she had been neither strong nor wise enough to see.

"Christine?" Meg asked, stroking her arm. Christine blinked, unaware of how much time had passed.

"I'm sorry—I'm getting nostalgic, I think."

Then it was off for parasols, then shawls, which she did buy, with the prospect of a three-day train ride before her, heading north the whole way. All day she looked for a gift for Erik, but nothing seemed fitting. She had persuaded Madame to accept a couple of small items, and of course she was carrying packages for Meg because her friend's arms were full. But nothing for him. When she picked out a soft wool shawl for Aimée, she lost patience with herself.

"How is it that I can buy a gift for your maid, who has not spoken a dozen words to me, but I can't find a thing for Erik?"

Meg blinked at her, and Mme. Giry chuckled.

"There are few things so difficult as choosing a gift for a man."

Christine grimaced.

"They can't all be so difficult. He already has more clothes than I do, I wouldn't begin to know what book he'd want that he hasn't already got, and I've seen for myself that he hardly eats. It's maddening."

Meg suggested ink and paper, but that idea was altogether boring. At last they wandered into a music shop, where she poked around, despairing, for several minutes. There, in a case, was a small gold cravat pin in the shape of a conductor's baton. It was just the thing for her maestro. Madame nodded in approval. By that point, even Meg had had her fill of shopping.

They bustled into the parlor, and she wondered how she had ever thought him a monster. In narrowly cut black, he seemed impossibly tall, and any light always found his eyes, which today were nearly cobalt blue. Only his mask and his stillness might make him seem uncanny, and these no longer bothered her. She thought him very handsome, standing by the mantle smiling at them.

Meg had to show him everything they'd bought, and he gravely examined all of it, though he asked no leading questions, and several times he glanced up at her and Mme. Giry with an amused glint in his eye. When Meg launched into descriptions of the dresses they had ordered, Madame laughed and took her hand.

"Enough! Do not torture the poor man! Come, let us put these things away."

When they had left, Christine suddenly felt shy. It might be the last private conversation they ever had—what did one say? She searched his face and saw there sadness, but also calm.

"Are you eager for your journey?" he asked after a minute.

"Not the journey," she said. "I haven't been on a train since I was seven, and I hated it. But I am excited to see Stockholm again, and I hope that I will be able to make my way there."

"You will," he said, the firmness in his voice like an anchor that held her to herself, gave her strength. He ducked his head and looked at her sideways with a quirk to his lips.

"And if you do not, then I shall travel north and bully them into hiring you."

Christine grinned. "The Royal Swedish Opera?"

He waved his hand lazily.

"I am unimpressed by nobility."

She snorted. At the same time, she wondered who this person was.

"Will you write to me?" she asked, suddenly afraid to lose the moment, to lose this strange new friendship, which seemed so fragile yet so important. His teasing expression disappeared, and he looked at her solemnly for a long moment, then reached for her hand.

"Yes," he said, "yes. Thank you. I am very glad you will allow me to."

She had to smile at him again.

"I'm sure I will look forward to every letter."

She wished that she could reach up and curl her hand over that sculpted cheek, that a gesture of fondness so small did not carry with it the chance of causing him more pain. She squeezed his fingers.

Before she lost her mind and gave in to the temptation to tilt her face up and again taste his mouth, she stepped back to pull the tiny box from her bag and give it to him. He handled it as if he might crush it by mistake.

"What is this?" he asked.

She felt shy and awkward.

"I just … wanted to buy you a gift." Her voice was not entirely steady. "Isn't it strange, that I have only been here a few days? I mean—it's very small, but I wanted to do something."

He opened the box and was so long staring at it, utterly still, that she began to fret a little.

"Erik?"

He looked at her, his brows drawn together and his eyes smoldering.

"It's perfect," he whispered.

And there was that feeling again, that she could step forward into his arms and not have to go anywhere else, ever again. It was unfair. His eyes were too keen—she knew that he could read her thoughts as easily as notes on a page. She fought to master herself, to remember that she was leaving in the morning, that she did not know her own heart, that she had hurt him enough already. It took enormous effort to clear her head with those crystalline eyes boring into her; but she did it and smiled at him.

"I'm so glad."

He nodded slightly before returning her smile.

"Will you pin it on me?" he asked, holding the box toward her.

If he had indeed read her thoughts, he was entirely wicked to ask it of her. Given that she might never touch him again, she chose recklessness. He was tall enough that it was awkward to try to reach, even though he simultaneously bent forward and leaned his head back. It was hardly romantic; she chuckled a little. She dug her fingers down under his collar to shield his neck from the pin and worked it into the knot of his cravat. It made her dizzy to stand so close to him, so she was glad to step back and check whether the pin was straight. It made a handsome little spot of brightness against the black silk. He touched it with those long fingers and smiled a little.

"Thank you."


	38. 38

She could not know how she intoxicated him by standing so close, by the feel of her fingers against his neck. He tried to focus on the awkwardness of his stance, but it was very little distraction. There had been a moment when he almost thought that she looked at him as she had all those months ago, down under the Opéra when he sang to her and he thought she would be his forever, before it all fell apart. If that expression had lasted another instant he might have leaned in to kiss her, but then her face cleared—perhaps he'd imagined it.

Thoughts like that were just so much hubris, anyway. Better to focus on what was real: he could write to her, and he had a beautiful little pin at his throat that he could not stop touching. That they would write was a miracle and a comfort—no parting forever. It made his task to send her off well much easier.

Meg returned with her new shawl and her hair redone in a new ribbon, with Giry walking behind, rolling her eyes but grinning. They were a merry bunch, and Aimée outdid herself with a very fine supper, even going so far as to mumble that it was for Mlle. Christine. At that, Erik placed a glass in her hand, filled it with wine, and they toasted Christine all together; she then had to have a little cry. Aimée clutched her wineglass to her chest and stared at him with wide eyes. He patted her shoulder.

"It's all right," he told her, and it surprisingly was.

They stayed up late into the night, trading only the happiest stories of the past, which meant that Erik only listened, but still it was good to hear of glad times, to think that he had not wholly ruined the past. To see them sitting together was a marvel to him, three women of long, close acquaintance. They sat fairly on top of one another, and they were always touching—knees pressed together, a brief clasping of hands, an arm around a shoulder, a hand laid on an arm. He did not know whether other men touched each other or the women they knew; he had led a life nearly devoid of touch. To see such contact made him envious, hungry, but at the same time it rested his eyes to see such comfortable affection.

As the night wore on, pauses grew longer, as did the slight hugs. Erik wondered whether he could fall asleep there in his hard desk chair and hold this image in his head through his dreams—Christine with her head laid against Giry's arm, holding Meg's hand, the three of them lit by the orange glow of a banked fire.

He didn't know that anyone suggested that they all go to bed—it was as if their minds moved along the same pathway and came to an agreement. Even with shadows under her eyes, Christine was more beautiful than anyone he had ever seen. In his dream, she held that expression of bewitchment for just a minute longer, and he leaned into her, her lips soft as rose petals and her fingers at his neck. When he woke, deep in the night, he rolled over to place his hand and his forehead against the wall. She lay on the other side, and he told himself that he could smell her, a faint scent of jasmine. Uncomfortable as it was, this was how he fell back to sleep, as close to he as he would ever be again.

They were all of them up early—he could hear Meg and Christine thumping about in their room, talking quietly. Christine had never been one for organization or planning—she was likely packing, and Meg would be off to teach soon. He would let them have their goodbyes privately. She would go, and he would lose his heart again, for it was entirely hers, and when she wasn't near he wouldn't have it. He wrapped her father's picture in a large square of red silk and tied it with a black ribbon. The small box with the cravat pin lay beside it. She had given him a gift—a tangible thing, which could stand for all the other joys of these short days, as her ring did for all their days of suffering. She was leaving, but his heart felt lighter. Already he was composing his first letter to her.

Breakfast was quiet. Meg had already gone, and Christine kept fiddling with her silverware, eating very little.

"Are you nervous?" Giry asked, and she nodded.

"I have traveled so little that I don't know what to expect."

Erik wished he could send his shadow with her, to loom over her and protect her from danger. Knowing that she would go this very day, he gave in to all his romantic notions and thought of following her, even if he was only the unseen guardian, as in the past. But how much better to reveal himself, to guide her on his arm. He needed little sleep; he would sit up all night in the railway carriage and she could rest her head against his arm.

Time passed too quickly with such thoughts. Too soon the hired carriage was in the street, her trunk loaded on top, and it was time for her to go. Giry embraced her; he kissed her hand, lingering as long as he dared. He pressed the silk-wrapped present into her hand and told her to open it on the train. Her smile was tearful as he handed her into the carriage. He and Antoinette stood waving as long as they could see it. Erik told himself that he could see her face through the window, looking back at them. He thought, "I will love you all the days of my life."


	39. 39

Did it count as bravery, that she got in the carriage, boarded the train, even though it terrified her to do so? Despite having decided that this was what she wanted, it was one thing to fix on a plan and quite another to carry it out. She had not given much thought to the notion that she would be entirely alone. And when it came time to say goodbye, everything seemed so final. She wished that she had not been wearing gloves, that she had been able to feel Erik's lips on her hand.

She settled herself into the ladies' carriage. An older woman in half-mourning smiled at her—her hazel eyes were surrounded by a web of smile lines, and Christine was comforted by the thought that she might have an ally, or at least someone to talk to. A stern-looking woman with two small children sat in the back, and a frumpy girl was sleeping with her head against the window. Christine sat close to the older woman, far enough not to crowd but close enough to leave conversation open. She was glad the carriage was so empty, but when the train finally started, it was very loud, and it shook horribly. She settled into her seat and pulled Erik's gift from her travel bag.

The black ribbon made her smile. In times past, she had fretted over these ribbons, because his gifts of single roses confused her as to whether he was flesh or spirit, or because he had frightened her, or because she felt choked by his pervasive presence. Now, she felt so gentle toward him. She was glad he had done it—added this ribbon—no matter how unconsciously. The silk of the package itself was beautiful, the color of blood. She would have to think how best to use it. Her fingers hesitated over unwrapping the gift, although she did not know why.

She heaved a great sigh as her fingers stroked the cloth. Something in her relaxed, a tautness that she had been holding since that conversation in the middle of the night, when they had reached their understanding, when she had put her arms around his broad shoulders and drunk in his scent, his presence. "Let the miles pass," she thought. Let distance divide them, that she might have a clear head and know her heart. She had been muddled by him, by the shock that he lived and all that had been unresolved between them.

She had always been muddled by his presence. It was part of why she had thrown herself at Raoul—with him she was still herself. Erik consumed her. And was that what she wanted? These few days, it had seemed so. It was too much to bear. She must find her way, find silence. She blessed her own strength, that she had kept quiet, kept away from him. She was a foolish girl, and if she had yielded to the temptation of him and later changed her mind—for how could she know that she would not? There would be nothing more terrible. At worst, he would not survive it. No. She had proved herself fickle, and for the sake of any man who might love her, she would keep silent until she could trust herself.

Still she had not opened the gift. She would have to break herself of this habit of staring for long moments into the distance. She would have to get used again to hard work. How difficult would it be to secure an audition at the Royal Opera? She hoped that Mme. Giry was right, that her name would count for something. She knew her voice was good enough at least for the chorus, and that would give her a living, however meager. If that could happen soon, she could save the Comte's money and be assured of safety even when she was old.

She laughed a little at herself, that she had done it again and was still sitting with the little package on her lap, finding any excuse not to open it, as if he'd wrapped up a scorpion for her. She drew off the ribbon, smoothed it through her fingers. The piece of silk was quite large, but after she had unwrapped two folds, the shape began to feel familiar to her hands and her breath caught in her throat. She had to make herself keep going as her hands began to shake—her heart was thudding in her chest and she could not get enough air. How had he managed it? Tears dripped down onto that face, so beloved, so missed. The glass was cracked, but Papa's portrait was undamaged. If she had thought it still existed, she would have been miserable to leave this behind, but she had assumed that it was destroyed along with everything else.

Erik must have gone back to the Opéra to get it for her. What danger had he risked for it? For all she knew, the gendarmes still patrolled to find him. The entire building could have fallen on him. That he had done this for her was shattering. Had she opened it at the flat, she never would have left. There could be no better gift. She clutched her father's portrait to her chest and sobbed.


	40. 40

Mme. Giry took Erik's arm as the carriage rounded the corner out of sight.

"So, my friend, what shall we do with ourselves now?"

When he turned to her, his smile was sad, but she had been so afraid of his returning to madness that this calm grief was almost a comfort. Had he fallen into despair again, what would they have done? Meg's salary was not enough for both of them to live on, and if he had become destructive again—the thought chilled her. Their existence seemed very fragile, in the face of such notions. But it had not happened.

"We will go forward, I suppose."

Mme. Giry squeezed his arm and turned her head so that he would not see the tears that pricked her eyes. Whatever détente they had come to, it had changed him. Perhaps he was stronger than she gave him credit for, or perhaps he was less fixed in his stubbornness. Regardless, she was glad for it, even as she wondered (with a pang of guilt) whether this would have been accomplished years ago if she had spoken to him more or had encouraged him to learn something of the world.

It was so good to have a quiet day. A little excitement could be welcome, but she felt as if she had spent the past four days tiptoeing on sharp stones. That poor girl, to cause such trouble everywhere she went. With a face and a voice like that, Christine might have more of the same before her. Perhaps the Swedish would turn out to be a more stoic people.

He went back to his desk and she to mending. More than anything, she wanted to ask him what he and Christine had decided, how this new calm had come about. Perhaps, in a few days, she would ask. Strange to think, that Christine Daae could spend four days in their house and Erik remain himself. Strange to think that she was gone again, on a train north, and the two of them were sitting silently, all over again. What had they been speaking of when she arrived? She asked him.

He was never so still as when he was listening or thinking. To her knowledge, Erik never forgot anything, so she was not surprised when he blinked slowly at her after a moment.

"I believe it was about opening a dance school."

Ah, of course. An absurd idea, but she would have to think of something. She couldn't be dependent on Erik's generosity forever.


	41. 41

Even when he had had no friends, music had been his faithful companion. Christine left, but she was not far away. she was in the light melody riffling through his mind and out, down his arm and onto the page. This was no lament for strings. Oboe rose up over a symphonic base—a difficult instrument, but, in the hands of a master, of great beauty. No hack musician could play this, anyway, a melody line of light trills, of notes held long enough to amaze. He brought the oboe down, just a touch, and added flute, twining the two together in an intimate harmony, with no embellishment save the two instruments moving together. It was a music of interlaced fingers, of comfort.

His only frustration lay in not having a keyboard. An organ he could manipulate to sound at least somewhat like various instruments—a pianoforte would even have been acceptable. Violin sounded simply like itself. But to expand, he would have to live somewhere else, and the papers had been too full of descriptions for him to move upward into nicer neighborhoods and less lenient society. Best of all would be the country, but then what would the Girys do? They were both urban women to the core, not to mention that ballet was not exactly a bustling business out in the middle of nowhere. He would have to think on it.

This tangent had thrown him off course with his piece. He did not realize that he was humming until Giry commented.

"That's lovely."

As so often happened when he was working, he had quite forgotten that anything else existed.

"Thank you. I am not sure where to take it."

"But you're not going to walk?"

He thought briefly.

"No. It will sort itself out."

Despite what he would have thought, the room seemed smaller without Christine, as if she broadened the world. So he wandered lost for the next few days, seeing a dark-haired ghost in the corners or catching the scent of jasmine in the hall. He wrote, he started making vocabulary lists, and he tried not to think too much. He waited, not very patiently, for an address and a letter.

A week later, Meg came home trembling with excitement—the Comédie Française was holding auditions in three days' time, and the master of her school, who had connections there, had recommended her. The sitting room was immediately dismantled into a practice studio, from which Erik was banished. He found it most irritating to try to work in his room, with the noise of Giry's cane and the scrape of Meg's shoes coming from down the hall. He took these days to walk and to sit at his favorite little coffee shop and work on his Swedish.

Meg got the position—chorus in the second company—and Giry had a strange smile on her face as well when the returned. Meg stopped pirouetting just long enough to make her tell him. Giry ducked her head and looked away like a shy girl.

"What is it?"

Meg could not contain herself.

"They hired Maman too! The minute my name was called, M. Beauchamp asked for her! She's to teach the little ones for now, but he said that they absolutely mean to keep her!"

Erik could describe his response in no way other than fraternal pride.

"Antoinette. Is this true?"

She nodded, blushing like a schoolgirl—it took a dozen years from her face.

"Apparently my reputation is better than I knew. He said they had been hoping I would come to them ever since the fire."

He took her hands and squeezed them.

"You deserve it. You are a fine ballet mistress and an excellent instructor. They'll be lucky to have you." He looked at Meg. "Both of you."

Meg pirouetted again.

"The Comédie Française! Who would have thought it?"

There was nothing to be done but to send Aimée out to buy the makings of an excellent supper, and Erik toasted the Girys so often that they all got a little drunk.

"Oh, but Erik!" Meg cried at one point. "What about you? Maman and I both get lodgings with our contracts. Will you stay here?"

God in Heaven, who was he? He was unable to resist.

"Hm," he said. "Perhaps it is time for the Comédie to acquire a ghost."

Meg dropped her fork onto her plate, and they both gaped at him while he looked at them with a carefully mild expression. Giry was the first to laugh, but Meg quickly joined in, and they shouted with laughter until tears ran down their cheeks.


	42. 42

Mme. Jenssen turned out to be just as kind as her eyes had seemed. She let Christine cry for a few moments, then handed over a very large handkerchief, plain but of very soft linen. Christine didn't use it, of course, having one of her own, but she smiled her thanks as soon as she had composed herself.

"Are they happy tears or sad?" the woman asked in lightly accented French.

The accent was telling, so Christine thought for a moment to make sure that she had the words right.

"A little of both."

The old lady started, and her smile was one of pure delight.

"Why, you speak Swedish!"

Christine nodded.

"I'm out of practice, but I'm going home after many years."

She beckoned Christine over.

"Well, you're welcome to practice on me, my dear. It does my heart good to hear my own language again."

M. Jenssen had been in business in Paris for much of their marriage, and now that the deepest part of her mourning was over and her daughter happily married, Mme. Jenssen was going home to Göteborg to live with her sister.

"And what of you, Mademoiselle? What took you to France, and what brings you home?"

Christine smiled down at the portrait, and tears pricked her eyes again. It was like holding a small miracle in her hands.

"My father took me to France when I was a very little girl. He died many years ago, but I am just now able to go back."

She handed over the portrait. Mme. Jenssen stared at it for a minute, then gasped.

"Why, Mademoiselle! Are you Gustave Daae's daughter?"

Christine nodded, and the old lady took her hand.

"I should be surprised if the whole country didn't welcome you back! My dear, your father was so beloved. I know that in Paris he played the works of many fine composers, but in Sweden he was most loved for playing our folk songs. My Bengt and I went to hear him once—at the Kungliga Operan—and the entire audience wept."

Christine could not blink back her tears.

"Truly?"

Mme. Jenssen squeezed her hand.

"You didn't know?"

"No. I was so young when he died. I had no idea of whether he was famous—he was just Papa. And then I was too busy trying to make my way."

The old lady frowned. In such a kind face, it looked entirely out of place.

"Why, child, what do you mean make your way?"

Christine was amazed by the expressions that crossed the woman's face as she spoke of her years at the Opéra—minus, of course, the last one. Mme. Jenssen's face was all consternation.

"Do you mean to say that you were left penniless and had to dance for your living?" she asked after a minute.

Christine nodded.

"Well, I can hardly imagine it! All of your father's friends will be outraged."

Christine had to smile at that.

"If any of them are alive."

Mms. Jenssen patted her hand.

"Don't you worry a bit. We Swedes are long-lived. Do you know a soul in the country, my dear?"

"Only you."

It made the trip almost pleasant to have such a companion. Christine found that her language came back to her quickly, and Mme. Jenssen was very cheerful about providing words she had forgotten. The old lady was planning to spend some time in Stockholm before she went on to Göteborg, and she invited Christine to stay with her in the hotel and promised to introduce her to friends.

Mms. Jenssen was better than her word, and Christine could not have been more grateful for her new friend. Stockholm was a small but bustling city—the relative newness of the railway to the mainland was still exciting to the populace, and the city was bursting at the seams. Paris had been beautiful, but Christine found that her home city touched her heart in a way nothing in France ever had. Everything seemed more plain, but very clean and bright. Mme. Jenssen was able to advise her about furs to buy for winter and recommended her own bank. Christine soon found herself among a group of kind, busy old women, most of whom were widows and all of whom were by turns kind, eager to help, and each full of her own story about Papa.

To be so welcomed left Christine speechless. That her name would be well known was surprising enough, but, more than that, these women seemed so pleased to be welcoming her home for her own sake. She was greeted joyfully everywhere she went; she learned to play cards and even to not blush quite to much at the women's bawdy jokes. It was a bit like suddenly acquiring six grandmothers, and Christine was unutterably glad for it.

Mme. Gunnarson even had a room to let, for a very fair price. After she was settled and they had all seen Mme. Jenssen off after a night at the theatre, Christine went to have calling cards printed in preparation for presenting herself at the opera house. She posted letters as well, to Mme. Henri, Aunt Adelaide, and a much longer one to the Girys, along with a private note for Erik. Even the printer had heard her Papa play.


	43. 43

The Girys would begin at the Comédie Française on the first of the month, which left them just under three weeks to prepare. Meg quit her job at the day school and announced her intention to spend the time "doing absolutely nothing, as it's the last chance I get until my legs give out." She accomplished this admirably.

Erik thought that he would not stay in Paris. The thought of a cottage in the country—or perhaps by the sea—appealed to him. He could have solitude and inspiration both, with the added bonus of not having to worry that someone would realize he was the Opéra Ghost and turn him in for the bounty. The sea would be better. He had never seen the ocean, but the thought of pounding waves and the unceasing rhythm of waves appealed to him. He began to sketch plans for a small house—just in case, he told himself.

A letter from Christine arrived sooner than any of them would have expected, and Erik's breath caught when Giry handed him a small piece of paper with his name on it. He put this into his pocket for later reading. He felt that Meg was expressing his own raptures at her good luck in so quickly finding friends and a place to live and at her joy in her home town. That she betrayed some nervousness over the prospect of trying to get an audition at the opera surprised him not at all, but he knew the quality of her voice. They would be fools not to take her. Of course, it sounded as if her new friends were telling her the same thing. Between that and the fact that they were all old women, he approved of them wholeheartedly. That each of them was finding her place pleased him a great deal. He hoped that he would be half so fortunate.

Late that night, Erik sat on his bed and unfolded Christine's note. He felt that he could look at it forever, his name written in her hand—although the artist in him did note that she had not been a very attentive student of penmanship. Still, it was from her, and that was everything. As many notes as he had sent over the years, this was the first he had ever received.

_Erik_—_I cannot think of what to write to let you know how grateful I am. Of all the things anyone could give me, nothing could mean more than to have my father's portrait back. And now I have been able to bring him home again. I have so much to thank you for. Thank you, thank you, thank you, my dear friend and teacher. You have given me back a piece of my own heart. Always, Christine._

Erik touched the page as gently as if it was her face. Dear friend and teacher. Always. He blessed his own instinct that had driven him to the opera house to retrieve the picture. For all that they had set to rights between them, he felt that he still owed her a great debt—and yet she had much to thank him for? He had known too many years of misery; he did not know what to do with this gentle conversation, with this fluttering in his heart that might just be joy. He read the letter many times before he folded it away, and for months he carried it in his pocket like a talisman.

He fixed on heading west as soon as the Girys moved, which their landlady, Mme. Bronet, declared to be very convenient, even if she did cheerfully complain about losing such quiet, reliable tenants. She even asked to take Aimée, whose relief was palpable when she was presented with the idea. She had changed in their months together from a jumpy scarecrow into quite the study little person (if shy). Erik was extremely glad. He wrote back to Christine of his joy that she liked his gift and of his plans to go to the coast and write.

They were all glad enough of the change that they were packed early—Meg complained that she was down to one novel she had already read, and Erik did not have enough paper. He couldn't be too annoyed by it—he had learned so much about himself and had recovered his sanity in this small flat, with these two women. It was good to sit quietly with them and talk over the future.

With two days to go, he was finally prepared—train tickets bought, trunk packed, and his various accounts emptied. He had a tidy pile of money; perhaps he would not have to haunt any seaside amateur theatre troupe. Meg and Giry were out buying toe shoes and whatnot for their upcoming work. Erik found himself pacing the sitting room, spinning together a melody that he was scribbling into the flyleaf of a book. There was a commotion at the door, and then he heard the voice he least wanted to hear, calling out.

"Christine? Christine, darling, are you here?"

And then he was in the doorway, his enemy, with that damned perfect face. The Vicomte de Chagny stared at him for a moment, his expression one of growing horror.

"You!"


	44. 44

For a moment, Raoul could only think that the Phantom was, at last, actually a ghost, somehow come to haunt Christine in this dark, shabby place. How would he save her from a spirit? But then he noticed the changes—different hair, ink stains on his hand, the end of the quill trembling a little. Again, this man. His enemy.

"You!"

The Phantom just stood there, his stillness as eerie as it had always been, and Raoul's rage rose up in him, clouding the edges of his vision, that yet again he should be stymied by this _thing._

"Where is she?"

Damn it all, he was as maddening as ever.

"I can't imagine what you mean."

Raoul snapped—he threw himself at the Phantom with a growl. The bastard moved like a thief, and Raoul ran hard into the tall desk under the window. Could there possibly be traps even in this little room? He could believe anything of this man. If only he had killed him in the cemetery, would she not have left? That she would return to this monster must be impossible. It _must._ He turned to the Phantom, his breath ragged in his throat.

"Where is Christine? I know she's here."

That damned sneer. That damned, arrogant sneer.

"Indeed, sir, you are mistaken."

Raoul had no sword, no pistol, not even a knife in his boot, or this man would not live out the day.

"I swear to God—if you have hurt her—"

Really, his speed was unnerving. Raoul hardly blinked before he was leaning back against the desk, trying to escape the fierce blue eyes just inches from his own.

"I would never harm her."

Then, uncannily, he retreated again, just out of arm's reach. Raoul was twitching with shock and rage.

"Why does it always come down to you?" he whispered, then cursed himself for sounding like an idiot.

She was here—she had to be here. He had seen the address in her own hand, though he could not understand why she would have left without telling him. His parents said nothing—even Aunt Adelaide had done nothing but cry, and by the time he discovered it, she had been gone nearly two weeks. He cursed his own idiocy for assuming that the mails were late. Old Aunt Adelaide, who seemed so harmless, in collusion with them all. Even the damn cook, though at least he had been able to finally threaten her into giving up this address. He had seen the letter, the mention of the Girys. She must be here. Nothing of this answered the real question—why did she leave him? After all they had been through, after all he had done for her, and she just took it away. Why?

He had such dreams for their life together, his beautiful Christine and himself. She would be the toast of all society, and he would forever keep her safe from all darkness, from all harm. Even when they were children, he had protected her. She needed protecting—her heart was too kind. She had too much sympathy for the villain standing before him. He could do it, but not if she refused him at every turn. Father's terrible silence and Mother trying to pat his arm. How long had it been going on, this conspiracy among them? That blasted business of working all the time was surely part of it. They had been so happy. He thought they had been so happy. That they would be married. That they would live together always in the light: himself, his Christine, and all the children they would have, each as beautiful as she. Hadn't they been happy?

Raoul took a great, shuddering breath. He would be damned before he broke down in front of those predatory eyes, now watching him too keenly. That monstrous face always seemed to know too much. He took strength from revulsion, from bitterness—it cleared his mind like cold air. This man was more than his enemy. He was a fugitive with a price on his head. By God, the Phantom would not have his Christine.

"You can stare all you like," he said, "all the way to the guillotine."

Raoul ran for the gendarmes.


	45. 45

The boy was broken, and Erik astonished himself by having a pang of sympathy. Certainly he understood a shattered heart. Nonetheless, he knew better than to ignore the threat. His trip would begin rather sooner than he thought. He raced for his room—most things were packed, and it took him no time to put the last of his clothes into a carpetbag, along with his money, his book, and the little blue box that now held not only the lovely little cravat pin but also the ring she had given him, the night she kissed him, the night he began to regain his sanity. Easy enough to imagine that the boy was lost without her, having been so himself.

He knew the habits of the local constabulary, and it was lunchtime. There was time enough to make up three small packets of cash, though no time for notes. Aimée was standing in the hallway outside his door, her eyes big as coins, and she held out a small bundle and a flask.

"I heard, M. Erik," she said. "For you."

He thanked her and was startled by her hand on his arm as he headed for the stairs. He glanced at her, and she shook her head.

"The roof. You can walk on the rooftops almost all the way to the Seine."

She led him up and held open the small door for him. Erik paused before he climbed through.

"You're very good. Thank you."

He pulled the small packets from his pocket.

"This is for you," he said, handing one to her. "And this is for Meg, the largest for Mme. Giry. Do not forget." She nodded at him silently. "Thank you again. Take care of yourself, my dear. Do not let Mme. Bronet bully you."

She bobbed a curtsy, and tears stood in her eyes.

"I'll drag your trunk to Madame's room, so they won't take it. Thank you, M. Erik. God bless you, sir."

Then he was out into the sunshine and the rooftops. He zigzagged across several blocks until even he felt a bit lost; then he settled into a shady spot and waited for nightfall. It was very boring—he was grateful for Aimée's bundle of food and his book. Surely there would be a night train heading west. As the sun began to set, Erik made his way down to street level and tried hard not to feel paranoid. Thankfully, no whistles or shouts came his way. At the train station, he traded in his ticket for one to Calais on a train that left in an hour. This gave him time to write a note for Giry, to find a boy to carry it, and to eat a hurried supper in a café. The day after tomorrow, he would be by the sea.

Erik boarded the train and settled himself into the dark corner. He did not quite breathe easily until the train reached speed, and when he finally relaxed, he felt as if he had spent the entire day running. The dark window was like a mirror, reflecting back to him the blurry shape of his mask, surrounded by shadow. He tried to work up some bitterness about it, this mask and the face beneath it that were the cause of all his troubles. Yet he was either too tired or too philosophical—his face was what it was, and nothing would change it. Having lived in the world, he would never again be satisfied with life underground, even if another grand theater were to present itself. No, he had come to treasure the rhythm of long strides down a sidewalk, of tiny cups of bitter coffee, and the pleasure of quietly talking with another human being. He would have to be brave and find his way—like Christine, like Antoinette and Meg. He thought this might be the first time he had ever embraced optimism.

Given that he was sitting up on the train, Erik slept about as well as expected. Early in the morning, the train made a long stop, and he was grateful (along with all the other passengers) to disembark and pace the platform until the kinks in his legs loosened. He bought a croissant and a coffee and lounged on a bench. The coffee was terrible, but still he savored its soft aroma and warmth. So lost was he in his thoughts that for a moment he didn't notice the tiny form standing in front of him. He looked down into a pair of eyes as blue as his own, in a solemn face topped by blonde hair that must be the despair of his parents, sticking up like that. Erik had almost no experience of children—he had the vague idea that they were extremely breakable, but this was coupled with the memory of their laughing at him when he too was small. He stared back.

The boy seemed completely unconcerned to be standing alone in front of a tall man in a cloak and mask. He glared at Erik with his brows pulled together, for several long moments.

"Why you got a mask?" he asked finally, in a voice like a piccolo.

This was a question that had gotten men killed, had burned down the opera house. Of course, one could not attack tiny children on a train platform. Thankfully, his mouth answered for him, before he could think too much.

"I had an accident when I was very young." This sounded plausible enough. Those pale brows drew even closer together.

"It hurt you?"

He was not exactly sure what timeframe was meant by this.

"It does not hurt now."

Strangely, he didn't mind this child staring at him—it was a stare without judgment. Such an odd creature; he didn't move at all when a young woman ran to him and took his arm.

"Michel, you wicked thing! I told you not to run off." She looked at Erik, and her expression faltered just a bit. "I'm so sorry if he was bothering you, Monsieur."

"Not at all, I assure you."

The boy looked up at her at her at last. She was a very pretty girl.

"I asking 'bout his mask."

She gasped. "Michel, you didn't!"

"He got accident."

The woman picked the boy up and turned to him.

"Monsieur, I'm so sorry. Really, he's too young to know better, he meant no offense."

Erik stood, and her eyes widened further at his height.

"Please, Madame, do not worry. He was merely curious."

"It okay, Maman," the boy said. "He say it not hurt."

Erik had to grin.

"Indeed. So you see, it is quite all right."

The woman's smile was very uncertain, but she allowed him to shake hands with his new friend. Such tiny fingers, folded inside his own. Childhood accident, indeed. Quite a useful conceit, that. He still had half an hour before the train departed—perhaps he could find a stationer's that was open.


	46. 46

Mme. Giry and Meg arrived home somewhat later than they expected, having dawdled over whether to chance some very late asparagus (they decided on aubergine). They had been to see their new quarters. Mme. Giry was more than pleased with hers—it had a small sitting room, so that Meg would have a place to escape to when the dormitories got too close It would be much like the Opéra, but finer, with better pay, and much further to go.

"You listen to me, pet. You have enough talent for three girls your age, and more beauty besides. You work hard and keep away from the boys, and you might make something of yourself."

Meg grinned at her.

"Must I keep entirely away from the boys?"

Mme. Giry laughed.

"I didn't say that you have to keep away from their pocketbooks!"

Yet it was very strange, when they reached the threshold, that the front door was standing open. She put Meg behind her on the stairs, a sense of wrongness spreading. In the sitting room, poor Aimée was staring up at a gendarme, tears streaming down her face.

"Aimée!" The girl ran to her. Mme. Giry put her arm around her and turned to the tall policeman, but then she noticed the other man in the room.

"Vicomte?" Oh God. Where was Erik?

"You are Mme. Giry?" the gendarme asked, walking toward her. Mme. Giry tucked Aimée behind her with Meg, even though the young man seemed merely grave. The Vicomte, however, was extremely agitated.

"I am. What is going on here?" They could not have found him, or they would be gone already, and she would read about his execution in the newspapers.

"Madame, the Vicomte de Chagny says that he came looking for his fiancée, but that he found instead a fugitive."

"What?" She could think of no other response that would buy her time to think. The Vicomte started forward, but the gendarme stopped him with a raised hand.

"Please, Madame. You did not know that the Phantom of the Opéra was in your house?"

Meg made the most extraordinary sound—it was part shout, part choke, and then Aimée cried out.

"Mlle. Meg!"

Mme. Giry turned and Meg was on the floor in a dead faint, with Aimée patting her hand. Meg had never fainted in her life. The young policeman was at her side in an instant.

"Aimée, go fetch my smelling salts. Monsieur, if you please—set her in this chair."

He was everything proper and gentle as he lifted Meg into the armchair; then he stepped back while Mme. Giry waved the smelling salts under her nose. Meg shook her head and grimaced, then looked up with wide eyes.

"Maman, he can't really have been here?"

Drat the child. She should have been an actress. Mme. Giry patted her hand.

"How could he have found us?" Might as well keep up the charade. "Monsieur, at the Opéra, he left notes for his victims. Did you find one here?"

"No," the young man said, then set about searching for one. The Vicomte came over, looking mussed and ill.

"Is she here? Please tell me she's here."

"Monsieur, I'm very sorry. She is not." The poor boy looked utterly heartbroken. The gendarme cleared his throat.

"I see no notes, Madame, but I have noticed that you are packed for a journey."

"Only a short one, Monsieur. My daughter and I will soon be working at the Comédie Française. We will move into our lodgings there in just two days."

The policeman nodded gravely and wrote this into his little notebook.

"And the Vicomte's fiancée—" he flipped back several pages—"Mlle. Christine Daae. She is not here?"

"No."

He eyes were unnervingly sharp.

"But she has been here recently?"

"Yes, Monsieur—how did you know?"

"Someone has been sleeping in the third bedroom, and you have this arrangement of chairs around the fire."

They would have the one intelligent policeman in all of Paris.

"She left us very recently," Mme. Giry said, and the Vicomte gripped her arms hard.

"Where did she go? You must tell me!"

"Monsieur!" the gendarme barked. "Kindly restrain yourself."

He asked them many more questions, all with the same answers—yes, Christine had gone. No, they did not know where. They had no idea the Phantom was in their house; it was all a great fright. The Vicomte was strangely quiet throughout the proceedings, much different from his swashbuckling of the past. Meg continued to look wan and tearful, until at last the gendarme declared himself satisfied.

"Monsieur, it's clear to me that these women were nearly victims of this criminal. Mesdames, I am very glad that you will soon be moving to safer lodgings. As regards Mlle. Daae, I'm sorry, sir, but it is not the business of the police if a girl changes her mind."

He bowed and left, and the women risked a glance at one another before turning to the Vicomte. He stood with shoulders bowed, looking a decade older than his years.

"I can't believe she left," he said, and it wasn't certain whether he was even talking to them. Mme. Giry's heart ached to look at him.

"Monsieur, please sit down. This must have been awful for you."

"No." He shook his head. "No. You don't think he found her? You don't think he—took her?"

"Oh no," Meg said, sitting up a little. "She left here of her own free will. She said she wanted to start a new life."

"Where?" he asked in the voice of a lost child. "Please tell me where."

Mme. Giry felt that she should be warning young men instead, to see that sad, liquid gaze in her daughter's eyes and know it was all an act.

"She wouldn't say for sure," Meg said. "But she mentioned St. Petersburg. And America."

The poor boy sagged even more, and Mme. Giry hurt for him. But if the stories Christine had told of the parents were true, they would keep him busy, and he would rally soon enough. He would recover.

"I don't understand," he said. He looked at them all, his face the very picture of sorrow. "Please. If she writes to you, please tell her that I love her. Please tell her to come back."

He walked as if each step would undo him, slowly and sadly all the way down the stairs. Poor man. Mme. Giry shook her head. He had always been running in without thinking, and he had only gotten himself a broken heart for his trouble. Still, she was glad that the parents had stepped in. Whether it was fondness or schoolgirl romanticism, Mme. Giry would rather Erik had another chance.

A giggle erupted behind her, and she turned. Aimée had thrown her apron over hear head at some point during the questioning and sat under it shaking. Mme. Giry had assumed this was fright and tears, but it was apparently laughter. She hadn't known the girl was capable of it. Meg was quickly joining in.

"Meg Giry, you will be the death of me!"

"But Maman, it worked, didn't it? I've never tried fainting before. I had no idea it was so effective!"

Mme. Giry could only groan, and the two girls giggled shamelessly.

"You should not laugh so at the poor Vicomte. He's obviously shattered."

Meg's face sobered instantly.

"I know, Maman. But if Christine wanted him to know where she was, she'd have told him. Anyway, it was mostly to protect—" Mme. Giry gasped along with her—"Erik!"

Aimée got to her feet and handed them each a small something.

"M. Erik left these for you. I let him out on the roof the first time that gentleman came, before he brought the gendarme. His trunk's in your room, Madame. I think he's safe."

Mme. Giry hugged her.

"Oh, you good girl!"

Once she had sent Aimée to start supper, Mme. Giry examined the packet of money and very nearly swore. Had he been there, she would have made him take fully half of it back—at least. At this rate, she might be able to retire some day. The wretch.

During supper, Aimée brought a note from Erik—he was safe and bound for Calais, would she please send his trunk? Her relief was so great that she declared him extremely troublesome, with which Meg and Aimée both agreed. That the three of them were grinning like fools made no difference at all.


	47. 47

Christine didn't know what courage lifted her and carried her down the streets to the Kungliga Operan with nothing more than a calling card and a partly warmed-up voice. Mme. Gunnarson, in her kindness, had painted an entirely glowing picture of how it would all turn out—Christine tried to hold this to her. She remembered the ovations back in Paris and how her dressing room had been filled with flowers. If they would hear her, she had a chance. If they would hear her, and if there was room in the company. For five or six steps she walked in despair. Then, inexplicably, the languid wave of Erik's hand came to her, when he said that he would travel north and make them hire her. It made her smile. Could anything else have made her smile? Even when she had lit the candle in front of Papa's portrait this morning, her hand had trembled. Yet as had so often been, the Angel comforted her, as if his strength reached across the miles to keep her safe.

The opera house was very fine, though it was not as ostentatious as the one in Paris. She was very glad that it had the same sort of smell—wood polish, bow rosin, greasepaint, and a whole host of other things that made up the smell of home to her. And even if they didn't take her, there were smaller companies in smaller theaters; maybe they all smelled the same. This thought got her up the stairs, to a door outside the offices. It allowed her to make a curtsy and to place her card in the hands of the man who stood there. There was a little bench—she sat down with a lump in her throat. She did remember not to twist her fingers.

Christine did not wait for long. Before she had time to even begin to worry, the door reopened, and a red-faced man came through with an expression of astonishment on his face.

"Mlle. Daae? Can it really be Mlle. Daae?"

He reached out, and she laid her hand in his while he stared at her as if she had a frog sitting on her head. This thought, happily, made her grin. At that, the man's eyes widened, and his face split into a great smile.

"Why, bless me! There's your father's smile the middle of that pretty face. Come in, my dear. Come in and tell me everything."

He was, of course, M. Carl Eckman, manager of the opera, and it was only another ten minutes or so until he remembered to tell her this. He wanted to hear all that she remembered about Papa's career in France, however sadly little that was.  
"Of course, I didn't even work at the Operan in those days. I was a mere clerk in a trading house, saving my penningar to go to the theatre, or the opera, or the symphony. Ah, my dear—the entire country was sad to see him go. I am so sorry for you, Mademoiselle, that he died."

Just like Mme. Jenssen, he was outraged by the turn her fortunes had taken; he actually spluttered through her telling him of moving into the dormitories all alone.

"Monsieur, please be easy. It wasn't so bad as all that."

"But did no one contact your parents' families? Or your father's patrons here in Sweden?"

"I have never known. I have no memory of aunts or uncles, so there may not be any."

M. Eckman shook his head.

"I find that highly unlikely. Mlle. Daae, will you allow me to make some inquiries on your behalf?"

Was there an unkind person in the country?

"Sir, you are so good. Yes. Thank you."

Then the look in his eyes turned shrewd.

"This can't be why you came, of course."

She shook her head.

"No, it isn't."

He sat back in his chair and smiled at her.

"You have been very patient to indulge an old man's thirst for gossip. You've come to audition, then? Let me call the ballet mistress."

He was awfully fast; by the time Christine called out, he was halfway to the door.

"If you please, sir—you are right. I did come with the hope of auditioning, but not for the ballet. I mean, I will dance if I must—and I must work—but I would much rather sing."

His blue eyes were very bright, and even as kind as he was, she could see the calculation in his gaze. Singers brought in more ticket sales than dancers, and perhaps her name did mean something, after all.

"I must confess that I am curious to hear the voice of Gustave Daae's daughter." He smiled again. "Come, Mademoiselle. Let me introduce you to our Spanish conductor."

M. Peña was a very handsome, very solemn man. He looked like a person whose entire family had died and taken to haunting him. His eyes were two pools of shadow, and he made a very old-fashioned bow over her hand.

"Even I have heard of your father, Mademoiselle, and I have only been here for three years."

He led her to the pianoforte. For luck, she requested the aria from _Hannibal_ that had served her so well before. She was very glad that M. Peña insisted on warming her up first, and he glanced sharply at her at the first scale. This gave Christine courage—she remembered to breathe, and as she inhaled, she reminded herself to relax, to broaden her sound, and she felt the notes buzzing up in her head, just as they should, which opened her range on both ends and sent her voice flying out to the corners of the auditorium. M. Peña had just the slightest lift to one side of his mouth, which she came to know as his smile.

"If you please, Mademoiselle. The aria."

If she could do this, pay for her own upkeep with her voice, Christine thought there could be no greater blessing. These notes, these words, were as familiar to her as breath, and it had been so long since she had been able to truly let loose with her voice—not since _Don Juan,_ which had been the first time she had dug deeply within herself and truly sung with her heart. Having once blazed that pathway, she could easily do so again; that little bit of squeakiness at the top was gone, and her volume was greater without having to push. She could hear how much more rich her voice had become, as if it had grown along with her spirit. Erik would have been so proud.

The aria finished, and M. Peña cleared his throat. One eyebrow was lifted, but he was looking at M. Eckman, not her. Christine took a deep breath. She had sung better than ever before, but that was no guarantee of anything, and now that the music was over, she was nervous all over again.

M. Eckman, however, was weeping. Christine could only gape at him for a moment, until he pulled out a red handkerchief and blew his nose loudly.

"What do you say, Peña? Do we have a place for Mlle. Daae?"

"If you don't give her one, I'm going back to Madrid and taking her with me."

This seemed promising enough that she risked a tiny smile. Then M. Peña bowed at her again, and M. Eckman shook her hand until her arm felt a little numb. By this point she was really smiling. But it was not until some time later, when she had been introduced to a good dozen company members, that Christine realized that she would not be singing in the chorus. When she blurted this out, M. Peña's eyebrow rose again, and M. Eckman laughed outright.

"I would be a stupid man indeed to waste that voice on the chorus, even if my conductor hadn't threatened me. No, my dear. If I know my business at all—and I do—you have every chance of becoming even more famous than your father.

She would cry later, being both relieved and overwhelmed. At that moment, she grinned until her face hurt. To be safe, employed, and surrounded by people who seemed delighted to meet her—it was everything a lonely little girl in a stone chapel had wanted, and already the old wound had begun to heal.


	48. 48

To be in a new place was a singular experience. Erik had stared avidly out the window at the changing scenery as he traveled, and at each stop of any length he had gotten down from the train to mark the color of the fields and the scent of the air. No one bothered him on the journey, and he felt that he was learning to steel himself against curious looks. Each time he went to a new place and successfully asked directions or made a purchase, it was a triumph.

Calais was bustling and bright, with a smell of fish and salt entirely different from that of the black mud of Paris. He walked immediately down to the sea and with a strange thrill looked out over the bristling masts of the harbor and the sparkling grey sea that went on and on toward the horizon. Of course he had known that it would stretch out in all directions, but to see it staggered him. It was so large, sparkling like a jewel. The strange scent of the salt air energized him. Erik walked down toward the water until he could hear the rush and thrum of waves—an entirely new sound, a rhythm that was both distinct and constant. He would have to find a place to live close enough to hear this all the time. It would worm its way into his mind, into his music.

This need pulsed in him, to have a quiet room by the sea. It drove him, and this made things easier—that, and the idea in the back of his head that at any moment he could answer a question or a glance with the phrase "childhood accident," as if this was a magic spell to open all doors and ease all journeys. For whatever reason, it did not come to that: he encountered no troubles. Each interaction was a victory, from directing the stationmaster about his trunk to getting a room at a hotel, all the way to visiting a rental agent and finding a place to live. He could barely believe it, that so many people would treat him fairly, that a handful of bills could so easily change a reaction from startlement to respect. That he, of all people, could move freely in the daylight, apparently anywhere in the world. Of course, he bucked tradition and kept his hat on, even indoors.

So it was that he found himself moving into a cottage a little north of Boulogne-sur-Mer. It was only three rooms—hardly an underground kingdom—but it was practically on the water's edge, and he had a woman coming in besides to cook and clean three days a week. The cottage was perfect: small, plain, comfortable, and a short distance from town. He would have as much privacy as he wished, but he would still be able to walk down easily for whatever he wanted. From the front door he could look left and see the little port, the dozens of tiny fishing boats and whitewashed houses crowded above the docks. His trunk traveled with him from Calais, so he had all his things with him: books, violin, and, praise God, paper. He immediately sat down to write.

Erik had been at the battered writing desk all night and well into the day, so he jumped at the knock on the door. It opened before he had time to rise to his feet, and in bustled a sturdy-looking woman dressed in black with a while lace headdress like those he had first seen near the port in Calais. She bobbed a perfunctory curtsey.

"It's Mme. Benne, here to fix your dinner, Monsieur. I expect you haven't had time to made a mess yet."

He took a moment to recover. He had been caught up in melody, and he hadn't realized how time had passed.

"Why, M.—Renouille, isn't it? Did I startle you? And look at your sleeves! You're up to your elbows in ink. I suppose I'll be doing your laundry, too, but that's another sou per week, and I won't be responsible for getting those stains out. A writer, is it? Books or poems, then?"

Erik cleared his throat.

"Music, actually. I'm a composer."

Mme. Benne's face brightened; her face was brown as a nut and heavily lined, but he thought this must be from weather, for she seemed very spry.

"Well, then! You must come visit us at the inn on Wednesday nights. It's a proper party we have. I'm sure it's not like your elegant Paris music, but we Bretons are proud of our folk songs, to be sure. You come give us a listen and see if you don't agree."

This was a level of friendliness entirely beyond anything he had known. Erik wondered whether she was nearsighted.

"Thank you, Madame. I will."

"And here I've been talking and you look like a starved man. I hope you like fish, Monsieur, for you've moved to a fishing town, and most days that's what you'll get."

Just as fast, she bustled back out, through to his tiny kitchen. Erik examined his sleeves. To say that he was elbow deep in ink was a bit of an exaggeration. In any case, the notes had still not left him, so he sat back down to write. Before he had gotten all the way down the page, the smell from the kitchen was utterly distracting. Once he realized he was hungry, he then noticed how tired he was.

Mme. Benne whirled back in.

"Well, your dinner's cooked, and I've left you some bread and a little tea. You haven't a crumb in your cupboards, so you'll want to take yourself to the market. Shall I take that shirt for you?"

"No, thank you."

And she was out the door like a gust of wind. What an odd person. The food was very good. When he was done, he laid down on the narrow bed for what was meant to be a nap, but he slept through to morning. He woke from vague dreams to a moment of disorientation, until he remembered where he was—by the sea. Perhaps it was a simple thing, but Erik reveled in the day: the sharp coolness of an autumn morning, tea and bread, the ocean glittering in the early sun. It lifted him, made him feel brave and strong, so he walked into town.

The path took him along the coast, the sea on his right, and the little fishing boats already far out on the water, barely visible. The sun seemed brighter here, despite the brisk air—Erik was very glad of his hat. After about twenty minutes, he met a man on the path who tipped his hat and bid Erik good day. All morning he met this: barely a glance when he asked for directions, nods and smiles as if he was any normal person. He could not understand it. Was it a town of the blind? Of the slow-witted? He bought tea and coffee, accompanied by polite nods. The old woman selling vegetables smiled at him and offered to send her grandson up with the packages later. The stationer hardly paid attention to him, and the bookseller seemed fit to keep him in conversation all morning.

Erik walked the town in bewilderment, until he started toward the harbor. First was a man with a sort of wooden spoon strapped to the stump of his left arm. Further down, an ancient man with no legs below the knee and very few teeth sat in the sun, mending nets. He bought fish from a smiling woman, surrounded by children with the same chestnut hair, who had a terrible puckered scar running down the left side of her face, and she was clearly blind in that eye.

Thought too incoherent for words dogged him up the coast to his cottage, which he found to be too cramped for comfort once his small tasks of putting away were done. The vegetables had been left by the door, and a little sprig of some sharp-smelling herb had been added to the package. How could any of this be? He walked to the water's edge and stared out. Where had been the marred faces in Paris? Was it just among those of the theatre and its rich patrons that he stood out as hideous? Surely Boulogne-sur-Mer could not be some strange haven for the scarred and malformed. Tipped hats and smiles all day, and that woman with her milk-white eye had at least five children with the same hair, spinning around her and clutching her skirts.

Of course, the man at the stationer's in Paris had always been supremely polite. This line of thought required a handful of stones to toss at the water. He had been utterly normal, that reedy old man with thick spectacles. Then, too, the boy at the music shop, with his passion for Bach. He played—what? cor de chasse? Strange instrument for a Bach enthusiast. The bookseller, too had always been eager to show him new stock. Three stones in quick succession flew out over the water. What was the trick? Was it his money? Or was it merely that he was there, in the day, speaking normally, a man like any other man? Just with a mask. It had only been in the opera house that he had surrounded himself with mystery, that he had inspired fear. The stones were gone. Erik stood with his hands in his pockets and stared at the sunset, the sky gone pink and gold and the water deepening to black. How many years had he lost, assuming that the whole world was like a gypsy carnival, out to capture him, to imprison and torture him? Going on twenty-five years. It was hard not to regret.


	49. 49

Christine didn't even have to put anyone out of a job. The leading ingénue had very recently become Mme. Boklund and was newly pregnant besides, so she was more than happy to hand over the keys to her dressing room and go with her husband to Uppsala. The dressing room was smaller than that in Paris, but she had come to realize that this was for practical reasons—smaller rooms were easier to heat during the long winters. She had been in Stockholm less than a month, and already it was nearly as cold as Paris ever got. Her birthday had passed without her even noticing. It was strange to think of herself as nineteen years old.

The company was in rehearsals for Donizetti's _Poliuto,_ which had no role for her. M. Eckman arranged several recitals for her in the homes of rich patrons. Christine continued to feel as if she was under a peculiar charm—the second recital was at the home of M. Lindstrom, who was easily eighty years old and had actually been Papa's patron. M. Eckman's questions had brought him to the Operan, and she had to tell her story all over again, even as she hated to see his stricken, rheumy eyes. M. Lindstrom apparently wanted to make up for her years of loneliness, for he vied with the widows for her free time and kept buying her presents—he seemed to think that she would be bothered by the cold. She was, but she would not have told him for anything.

She made friends. She sang for her living—not a grand living, but an adequate one, with a small room of her own in the opera house, where she had laid her piece of silk over her dressing table so that it glowed red in any light. She had a strange kind of detachment about it all: her good fortune, her new friends, the ovations every time she sang. It was all too new to trust, no matter how astounding it all was. Mme. Jennsen was already planning to come down from Göteborg with her sister for Christmas. Christine looked forward to the time when it was not all so completely new.

In the meantime, the best days were when letters arrived. This had not immediately been the case. Her first one had been from Erik—short and formal, but she could tell from the tone that he was pleased by her good fortune. A barely legible note from Meg followed about their new jobs at the Comédie Française, but before she could respond, another arrived saying that Raoul had found them in Paris and Erik had been forced to leave. Thankfully, these three days had been between recitals. There was no way to get news other than letters, and even though Mme. Giry had added a few sentences at the bottom to say that he was safe, Christine spent those days pacing her room, wearing herself out with worry. Erik's next letter mentioned nothing of Raoul—it said only that he was in Calais, the Girys having gone to the Comédie, and that he already loved the sea.

It was not lost on her that she cried with relief over this letter. Within a week, she had them all laid out on her bed—Meg's letter, Erik's shorter note, and two blotchy and tear-stained pages, one each from Aunt Adelaide and Mme. Henri. On top of these was Mme. Giry's letter, which was the only one that made any kind of sense. She had cried when she learned of Erik's safety, but even though her heart ached for him, she did not weep for Raoul.

Poor Raoul. She had had plenty of time to get used to the idea that his parents would not let them marry—he would be reeling from the shock. When she thought of what might have happened between him and Erik, she could only shiver; they had each come so close to killing one another once before. She would not have been able to bear it had either done so. She was so glad to have already been gone. If Raoul had found her in the same house as Erik, he would only have assumed the worst. Would he have accepted anything she said? Probably not—he never had before, and he was too mindful of duty and society. She sighed. Mme. Henri had been so frightened by him that she begged Christine not to write anymore, for fear of losing her place. It was all very troublesome. The more she thought about it, the more annoyed she was that Raoul would terrorize servants and little old ladies. She was half-tempted to write and tell him so, but that would surely bring him to Stockholm.

This was a new thought—Christine amazed herself that she had so thoroughly laid him aside. She did not want him to come to Stockholm. That was two things she knew: she wanted to sing and for Raoul not to find her. Poor thing. He would recover, she felt sure, and find some nice girl who spoke German and English, who could sew very pretty linens and knew how to run a fine house. She shook her head. Such a life would have been miserable to her. During the months of their courtship, of course she had never thought of such things. She had been too busy with romance, with kisses and waltzes. With dreams of quiet and safety, away from the Opéra. And now, having gotten her wish, it was not Raoul she missed but Erik. She shook her head at herself. Three things she knew: she wanted to sing, she didn't want Raoul, and she was an extremely silly girl.

Still, there were days when she felt as if she had made a great escape. She had loved living with Aunt—even the German lessons and the embroidery—but it had given her a true glimpse of all her disadvantages. For all of Aunt's kindness, her horror had been evident over such things as instructing how to use a fish knife. The Comtesse had been kind in her own way, but Christine had been aware every instant of those appraising eyes. And it would have been such her entire life. If any of society deigned to acknowledge her, she would have been scrutinized at all times, in every detail, and there would have been no leniency. Raoul had made it quite clear that she would have to give up her career—he seemed sure she would want to—so she might never have sung again, except for dinner parties or Christmas carols around the fire. She would have been expected to run the household and to bear sons. It would've been intolerable.

Aunt's letter was tear-stained, but the writing was perfectly clear, and she had asked only that Christine wait before writing again. She was touched by this obstinacy and good sense. Surely the situation was clear to her by now, and Christine was grateful that Aunt was not so horrified as to drop her. This was not only for her own sake—she didn't want Raoul to find her, but she did want to know about him. She wanted him to be well. She wanted his mother to coddle him and his father to keep him busy so that he would not have time to brood. He would make a very fine knight for some other girl: one of a better class and not so stubborn and broken.

She was glad to have become stubborn. It was better than being pulled back and forth among all the ideas other people had about oneself. It was, she decided, a bit like having a metronome on the inside, to keep her own time. She could adjust her own tempo as she wished, but it was hers. Everyone else's ideas were like the roles she would play—she would agree to them or no, she would throw herself into them or let them be a thin veneer. Through it all, she would remain herself.

So perhaps she knew some things after all. Beyond the three, she loved the softness of her seal-fur coat, and how it was so black that it soaked up the light. She did not care for aquavit, but she did like sherry. She liked her friends the widows, and Messieurs Lindstrom, Eckman, and Peña. She felt quite sure that she would become fast friends with Axana Frölander, the curvy blonde mezzo. She thought limpa bread was heavenly, but she missed croissants. She preferred Verdi to Offenbach and strings to woodwinds. And she knew that she must never again hurt Erik, no matter what else she decided. This was a frequent undercurrent to her thoughts. She wished he was near—singing again made her miss his tutelage and encouragement. She tried to tell herself that this was all she missed, but it didn't work. She missed his advice in all things. She missed his presence. She missed his voice, both speaking and in song, and two short letters were simply not enough. She couldn't even write back to him until he wrote that he was settled, and how long would that be? That he might forget her was the most awful thing.

There was a knock at the door, and one of the young maids poked her head in.

"If you please, Mlle. Daae: M. Lindstrom is in the foyer, wanting to know if you've had lunch."

It seemed a much better proposition than sitting on her bed making herself miserable over a man she had already refused.


	50. 50

Erik tried to tell himself that it got a little less strange to be greeted like a normal human wherever he went, but he remained unconvinced. Mme. Benne, who proved to be the town gossip as well as alarmingly chatty, paved the way for him—it seemed that in each new place he went, he was already expected, and more often than not he was asked about his music, what he thought of their town, and whether the cottage's roof still leaked. The latter question had not yet been answered. His compositions were taking an odd, fey turn, full of woodwinds in minor keys. The cathedral was reported to be very fine, so he went to Mass for the first time in years and sat in the back reveling in the sound of the organ and trying not to cringe over the choir.

He discovered that he did like fish but not the little black mussels that everyone else appeared to relish. The fish market appealed to his more lurid nature, and when he couldn't sleep he would walk down at dawn and stare at the weird, flapping creatures that seemed to gape back at him with their huge wet eyes. Once he saw an enormous fish with rows and rows of wicked teeth, which he sketched for a couple of days straight. He even put small drawings of it in his letters to the Girys and to Christine. Surely such things would be amazing even to those who had lived in the world.

He wrote to Christine daily, though very few of the letters were ever sent. She was his talisman, his muse, and he had a series of little books filled with letters to her—thoughts, drawings, snatches of music. Declarations of love. When he sat down by the sea and listened to the waves, he was writing to her. When he composed, it was for her. Erik made certain, however, that the letters he actually sent were light, full mostly of description and support. It would be far too easy for her to simply stop writing if he offended her, and he would not be able to bear it. So he sent letters only as often as he dared, which was rarely more than once a week.

Soon it was time to buy coal for the stove, and then a storm blew in that lasted for five days with no break, during which he found that the roof did in fact leak. He was used to a home that dripped, so it was not as bad as it might've been. M. Benne was unconcerned by the weather and came up on her usual days. She had a remarkable talent for removing ink stains from sleeves. Erik spent the time revising a couple of his scores. The few people he actually talked to seemed to want to know when they would hear his music, and it stirred his old ambitions. He had a violin concerto and sonatina in the same key that were both fairly complete—he spent a couple of days playing through them, making changes, and a couple of days very carefully writing clean scores. Once the weather lifted, he posted them to Paris, to the boy in the music shop.

After the storm, the weather was noticeably colder. Boulogne-sur-Mer was not an elegant sort of town—his embroidered opera cloak would look entirely out of place. He found a second-hand clothing shop and spent a very little money to acquire a thick, nubby sweater and woolen jacket such as the fishermen wore. They were a little short in the body, perhaps, but broad enough of shoulder and long enough of arm. Then he set about fixing his roof.

After five days of such close concentration, physical labor was not only welcome but restful. He knew nothing of roofs, having lived underground, but the engineering seemed simple enough. Several of the slate tiles had gotten cracked, and an animal living in the attics had pushed at them, making a hole. He replaced the tiles and mucked out the tiny attic and declared it a deeply satisfying day. He sat alone that night with his feet stretched toward the stove and marveled at the pleasure to be found in such small things. As he wrote in his little book of unsent letters to Christine, he had not cared for things as simple as comfort in his old life. He had wanted finery for its own sake, because finery was a form of drama. Intensity had been all he knew—brief moments of transcendence and the long, dark times of despair. Peace had not been something he despised, exactly, but he had always thought it beyond his grasp.

He went to Mass again on Sunday and decided that he approved of the organist. His ache for a keyboard gave him courage enough to approach the man and introduce himself after the service. M. Druyon was overjoyed to meet the new resident composer, and their conversation lasted far past supper without a single mention of masks. Erik was astounded by this later. Christine had been the sole other person he had ever talked with of music, so his happiness in finding a sympathetic ear was very great. M. Druyon was fond of modern music but not of opera, so Erik felt safe. Of course he was welcome to play the organ any time he liked. Erik hoped that he would remember not to abuse this.

As he walked home in the darkness, with his breath misting about his head, he thought of writing a mass for the cathedral, something specific to the place of this ancient town by the sea. They were very proud of their history here, so there would be an element of medieval plainsong in it—in the Kyrie, to begin. And then, in the Gloria, there would be an echo of the sea chanteys that he often heard as he walked the streets. These were usually in minor keys, with strange little trills all over the place that pleased his ear. He had never written liturgical music. Mostly he had hated God. But this: it would be a good project.

Then he looked out to sea. The nearly full moon made a silver road on the black water, and it was all woodwinds again in his head. What would be the end of such a road? To walk in moonlight across the ocean … there would be heaven at the end of that. There would be a white face surrounded by dark hair. There would be two kisses, and they might be followed by a third.

The letter that he sent to Stockholm said that he had fixed his roof, that the weather was turning colder, and that he was writing as much as ever. He added a little sketch of the boats in the harbor, just to fill out the page.


	51. 51

Her first role was to be Odabella in Vedi's _Attila._ M. Peña was good enough to tell her as soon as the decision was made, and it eased her nervousness to put so much study into the role. Then, too, it would be good to have rehearsals and to be busy. Christine had made sure to attend dance classes at least three days a week, but her recitals had required almost no preparation, and it was unsettling to be in the opera house yet idle. _Attila_ would rehearse for three weeks and run through Christmas, and at the new year they would hold a gala like the one in Paris.

Many people had attended her recitals and had praised her, but she knew that she must prove herself in an opera. Odabella wasn't the perfect role for this, but it was Verdi, so it would do. M. Lindstrom and the widows were overjoyed. Christine immediately wrote to Erik for advice.

His letters were very strange. She wished they were longer and not quite so filled with news of what was going on around him—she was much more interested in the man himself. But they at least had become frequent, and they often had charming little drawings in them. She thought he must be holding himself at a distance from her, and she tried to not let this hurt, with varying success. It vexed her, that he should pull away, just when she was beginning to think that missing him would not fade, that maybe her heart was not so fickle after all.

This was compounded by the discomfort that several young men had begun sending flowers after her recitals. They were all pleasant enough, but she had no patience for them. She felt that she had had enough of courting and of innocent gazing into another's eyes. They were very nice young men, with an emphasis on young. No matter what their ages were, she felt old by comparison. And, of course, older gentlemen with a different object—she had no interest in them either. Thankfully, her status as prodigal daughter kept most of the unsavory types away and lent a quality of safety to her dealings with the three young men. She was content with her widows and her ancient patron. Even better, M. Eckman had found a cousin, and he and his wife were coming to the opening of _Attila._

Erik's next letter made her laugh. It was five sheets, closely written and with no margins, much less drawings. When it came to music—and apparently to her voice—he had a great deal to say. He did not entirely approve of their choice of vehicle, but just as she had thought, at least it was Verdi. His insights into the character were quite interesting. She sat with the score for a couple of days, increasingly nervous at the vocal demands of the role and the difficulty of portraying a villain and yet being sympathetic. It was all very devious of M. Eckman. Their Attila was a Danish bass twice her size—if the staging was poorly done, it would look ridiculous when she stabbed him at the end. Erik's advice was very thorough, as if he had sat down with a score as well, going through note by note to tell her how to best play to her own strengths. She hoped that she would not make a fool of herself, stamping about in a giant breastplate.

It was a great relief to her when rehearsals began and she was too busy to brood. Christine had met the entire company, but to work with them proved to be an experience entirely unlike that in Paris. There was none of the strutting and posturing—no one was firmly established as a star, so there was much more of a feeling of solidarity. She had been careful to remain mindful of her newness and youth, so that most of the hesitation over the upstart with the famous name dissipated quickly.

The cousin M. Eckman had located was a first cousin of her mother, whom she did not remember. Mme. Hagglund, his wife, sent her a very friendly letter. It was bizarre to have a relative. After Erik's long letter, she felt secure in writing of it to him, the strangeness and wonder of it. All of it was strange, that she was not alone. Her entire life she had felt alone, since Papa died, except for her Angel. Was he lonely in his cottage by the sea? She didn't ask him that, nor did she say that it was him she was lonely for. She was so glad of work once she had had this thought. It was too much to grasp. She worked and sang. She posted the letter to Erik before she wrote something silly on it, like "I miss you," or "Come to Stockholm," or "If you will have me, I am yours forever." A very silly girl indeed.

Once a week his letters arrived, without fail, sometimes twice, but there was never a word in them that he missed her. He was all friendliness, but nothing more. _Attila_ opened to great enthusiasm—between Erik's counsel and M. Peña's very thorough ideas about warming up, by opening night she was, for her, barely nervous. It went off without any troubles. The widows loved it, and M. Lindstrom filled her dressing room with hothouse flowers. The Hagglunds were almost as shy with her as she was with them, but they invited her to their house for Christmas. She had plans with the widows but promised to go up after the New Year's gala, for Epiphany. She sang. She read Meg's rapturous letters about the Comédie. She hoped for a spark of something from Erik, and when it did not come, she mourned quietly. It was all her own fault, of course—she had hurt him too much and had missed her chance. These were the fruits of her own stupidity. She told herself this constantly. She would cherish what there was and make the best of it.

Once _Attila_ closed on Christmas Eve, Christine gave herself over to enjoyment and to her friends. She had been greeted by ovations for the entire run, but she placed most of that on the shoulders of M. Peña's staging. Still, the run was a success—even King Carl had attended a performance. M. Eckman was pleased, and Christine felt certain that her place was secure. Knowing this, it was easy to simply relish the company of Mme. Jenssen and her sister and of the other widows and to sneak out with Axana for late shopping.

The New Year's Eve ball was also a notable success. M. Lindstrom danced with all the widows, and Christine danced with the three young men, who thankfully behaved themselves. The elusive Mme. Peña made an appearance—she was a tall, olive-skinned woman who matched her husband in solemnity, although Christine thought that they danced together beautifully. It rested her eye to look on them, and for several sets she sat to one side with a little cup of glögg, feeling wistful. Did Erik dance? Had she not been so stupid, she would know. They would eventually have danced like that, with long years of affection showing between them and the grace of familiarity. Well. Not exactly like that; Erik was so much taller than she. He was just of a height that she could lay her head on his chest, her forehead against his neck, and listen to his heartbeat. Surely the addition of one tear would not affect the taste of her glögg. She was miserable about it. She reminded herself, for the twentieth time that day, that his heart must be the one protected. After all she had done, perhaps it was only right that she should suffer.

After the ball, she traveled very gladly and comfortably with Mme. Jenssen and her sister to Göteborg, where the Hagglunds lived. A week's worth of playing with their children and hearing stories of the mother she had never known was a welcome distraction. She had other cousins, it turned out—though not many—and cousin Oscar was very kind in introducing her to the ones who lived nearby. So she learned a little of her history. Papa, it seemed, had been the only child of his family to survive to adulthood, and his parents had died young, so there was no hope there. But if the Hagglund cousins were any indication, she had inherited her wild curls from her mother.

She wrote of all of this to Erik and about the severity of the dark days and the cold. She wrote to the Girys of her suitors and, as she had hoped, received some very sensible advice from Mme. Giry. She was not a bit surprised that Meg wanted mostly to know how good-looking they were. Her friends seemed to be happy in their new situation, but she would have given much to have Mme. Giry near. Such things as she wanted to say did not sound right in letters. So she kept her peace. She entered into rehearsals for her next role gladly, and she wrote to Erik of everything that she dared.


	52. Chapter 52

Within the month, Erik had a letter from a music publisher in Paris that was accompanied by a very fine printed copy of his score. He was enormously pleased by this and immediately wrote to have a copy sent to Giry. Given the dedication, he did not send a copy to Christine—she knew very well that she was the only person of his acquaintance whose name began with a C. It had been an impulsive decision to add the dedication, but he did not regret it. The publisher even asked for more, and this proved an excellent excuse for more conversation with Jean-Jacques Druyon. He had a nice little spinet in his flat, and he played the flute besides, so he turned out to be invaluable as Erik revised a good half of all he had during the course of one intense month. He had not ever had so much conversation with another man or another musician. Jean-Jacques had ideas that he himself would not have considered, chief among them being that he might want to write something not quite so difficult to play.

Once the large packet of music had been sent, Erik took several days to rest his brain and think over the idea of a simpler music.

"That's where the money is, you know," Jean-Jacques had said. "Virtuosi are a poor lot. Pitch it toward young ladies playing for family parties, my friend, and that's how you'll make your living."

Mice kept trying to get into the sugar, so when Mme. Benne came in next he asked about the possibility of getting a cat.

"Lord bless you, sir, a cat's no trouble to find! My neighbor has a litter of kittens living behind her rain barrel, of all places. I'll have my oldest grandson pick you one and bring it up, if you like. The boy's mad for cats, but his sot of a father won't let him have one."

The boy came up the next day with a tiny grey tabby kitten cradled in his arm. A bit of coaxing revealed that his name was Mathieu, and he looked to be around six years old. A little cooked fish had the kitten purring and butting her—his?—head against his fingers. He would have to give it a name, so he asked the boy its sex.

"It's a girl, Monsieur. Tom cats are more prone to wander and to fight. If you're needing a mouser, it's a girl you want."

He would never have known this. The boy showed him how she liked to be scratched behind the ears. He was a remarkably gentle child.

"You know, you may come up to play with her any time you like."

He surprised himself in making the offer, but the boy's face lit up immediately.

"May I, sir? I'd like that."

Erik named the little cat Nisse—Christine had described in one of her letters that she kept tripping over bowls of porridge in the opera house that had been set out for those household spirits of Swedish folklore. He practiced his Swedish on the cat, but she could tell him nothing about whether his inflection or pronunciation were any good. This, of course, made him think constantly of Christine, and he had an idea for a project of which Jean-Jacques would approve. Nisse liked the coal stove and to sleep on top of his feet at night. She brought her first mouse to him on the third day and accepted a ridiculous amount of praise before she took it away, presumably for her breakfast. Erik quickly stopped seeing signs of them in the kitchen, which did not deter the cat from begging for scraps of fish at every opportunity. He knew himself to be a soft touch, and she soon had a little round belly. As they got to know one another, he grew very fond of her warm, slight weight puddled in his lap and the of delicate softness of her fur. She was fond of singing and purred at him when he sang, slowly blinking her large green eyes. The violin, however, sent her running.

Mathieu soon accompanied his grandmother on most of her visits, and when Nisse was not to be found, he would stare avidly at the drawings pinned to the wall.

"Do you like them?" Erik asked one day, and the boy nodded.

"It's like magic, the way you make them so real." Erik smiled.

"It's not magic at all."

"But I've tried, sir, though I've got nothing better than a stick in the sand. It don't ever look like anything."

Erik assured him that this was a matter mostly of practice and of looking very carefully. He gave the boy one of the cracked roof slates and a piece of chalk, and afterward he rarely saw the boy without them. Mme. Benne was quite effusive in her thanks—apparently the boy's father kept them in a state of terror at home. He understood the comfort that an interior world could be, so he was glad to teach the boy such little things, to praise his sketches and begin to teach him his letters. And, of course, Nisse loved the boy. When, for Christmas, Erik gave him a bundle of sketchbooks and pencils, he told Mathieu that it was from them both. In thanks, Mme. Benne brought him a Christmas dinner worthy of a prince, which he ate for a solid week, even though Jean-Jacques walked up to share it after the rigors of Christmas services.

The publisher in Paris had taken on everything he sent and professed amazement at his output. The letter even included a small check from sales of the original violin concerto. It was the first bit of money he had ever come by honestly, and Erik was overjoyed about it—so much so that he even paid his tithe to the church. Of course, that this went toward Jean-Jacques's living made the donation very agreeable.

During their dinner, as the wind howled outside, Erik played for him some of the new songs he had been writing for the past few weeks.

"That's just the tune, of course. There are words as well, but I've never been able to find a way to sing and play the violin at the same time."

Jean-Jacques laughed.

"If you did, you could file for a patent and retire off the proceeds. Hand over the score. Ah, I see you've written it for baritone, but I'll muddle through."

It was good to hear the songs in another voice. Erik was pleased with his work, if a little embarrassed. When they were done, Jean-Jacques was grinning at him.

"Erik, I had no idea you were such a romantic!"

He cleared his throat.

"Yes, well. It's all your doing, with your idea that I should write something for the general public. I shall transpose them for all four parts, when I am done."

Jean-Jacques was still grinning.

"They are very fine songs, my friend. You must come work on the spinet—it's no good torturing yourself by trying to compose for voice on a violin."

It was Erik's turn to grin.

"Certainly not. I would not have someone hear my fumbling over the lyrics for all the world."

He could honestly say, as he sat later with Nisse in his lap, his feet propped on the stove, and with a glass of decent brandy and a book of new poetry, that he was content with his new life. He had found a welcome here such as he had never thought to hope for, and for the first time he was working for his living, contributing to the world instead of living off it like a parasite. Meg and Giry were in such raptures over their situation that he could not even wish them near him, not at the cost of their happiness. His one complaint was that Christine should be so far away. Their correspondence was his greatest treasure, but for all that she was so well established and discovering friends and relations, there was something sad about her letters, a sense of wistfulness. He did not ask about it for fear that she was pining over the Vicomte, so he filled his letters with all the happy things he could think of—she seemed very keen to hear about Nisse and Mathieu—and of course he was glad to answer any time she asked a question about music. It had been a very great temptation to travel to Stockholm and see her play Odabella. In the spring they were giving her Susanna in _Nozze di Figaro_, and he felt he must see it, if she would let him. That she was not perfectly happy grieved him.

This thought required more writing, much to the cat's dismay. Waves pounded the beach all through the night and informed his music. He wrote himself past consciousness and fell asleep over the desk, his mask laid by his elbow.

Mme. Benne's customary loud entrance jarred him out of sleep. She and Mathieu blew in with a great gust of cold air. He blinked at them sleepily. They blinked back.

"Lady save you, sir, is that what you've been hiding? That's none so bad. Get yourself out into the sun for a bit and put a little fish oil on it and there's those who won't even notice. Lord, I can't think what they are down in Paris, to make a body so vain."

He could only gape at her back. Vain? _Vain?_ He looked to the boy.

"It really isn't so bad."

Perhaps Erik's laughter was a bit hysterical, for it contained more than a hint of tears. Still, when he was done, he felt both worn out and glad. He had got himself to a very strange place, and he was utterly grateful for it.

Not long after this, Erik took his latest works to town and played them on Jean-Jacques's spinet. With his friend's approval, he sent them to Paris.


	53. Chapter 53

Christine was deeply vexed all winter. She had small featured roles in several productions and gave another handful of recitals, all to enthusiastic audiences. She was singing better than ever—Erik's continuing guidance was complemented by M. Peña's direction. But these were not enough to keep her busy, and she wanted to be busy, so that she would neither think too much nor brood. Her friends were so kind, and she knew that she should be content. She had work, a place to live, a career that seemed assured, friends, and even cousins. On top of this, two of the suitors lost interest. Yet she was restless, and when she laid in her little bed at night, she knew that this was a symptom of her breaking heart.

She could not be angry with Erik about it. After all, she had told him nothing. All her rage was directed at herself, that she had been so blind for so long. That it should take all of this was ridiculous—the Opéra burned down, Raoul disappointed, Erik in a shack by the sea, and she in Stockholm. But she loved him. It was only in the darkness that she would use the word. With every letter she hoped for a sign that he still felt the same, and with each one she was disappointed.

At least he sounded well, as if the healing he had found in Paris with the Girys continued, and she really was glad for him. His letters were a funny mix of French and Swedish, and as the months went on, Swedish started to gain the upper hand. His stories of his little cat were utterly charming, but when he reported on his young friend, a little boy whom he was teaching to draw and to read, she felt a distinct pang. She knew what an excellent teacher he was, both patient and strict. She missed it. Then, too, the thought of him with a child brought on its own pains.

Christine tried to conquer herself, to no avail. Perhaps it was the cold and the darkness. It certainly was a difficult adjustment. By the end of January she was thoroughly sick of snow and was beginning to think that she would never be warm again. When she said this, Mme. Gunnarson smiled and patted her hand.

"We all find the winter hard, my dear. That's why we invented saunas! Look to your feet, and keep plenty of candles going. And of course you're welcome here any time you're low."

She found that dance classes helped, so she took to attending every day, and Mlle. Schmidt and the corps were very good about letting her hang to the back and muddle through without interrupting them. She took up more embroidery. She wrote long letters. As the days grew longer, her spirits lifted a little. This sparked enough commentary that she felt the need to make a round of apologies to everyone. Then M. Lindstrom suffered a terrible bout of illness, so she spent much of her time visiting, trying to rally him. The old man was eager to see her in _Nozze di Figaro,_ so she learned the "De Veni" aria to sing to him. It was really a beautiful song, even a capella, and his delight was plain to see. When she got to the end, she surprised herself. She sang the final line, "Come, come—I will wreathe thy brow with roses," and promptly burst into tears.

For a moment, he was all astonishment, and then M. Lindstrom beckoned her to his sofa. She sat on the little stool beside him, and he patted her arm while she dried her eyes.

"My poor dear. Is that what it was, then?" he asked after a moment.

This was a little confusing.

"Well, I've wondered what brought you here so abruptly. Even with the opera house burning down—and yes, of course we knew about that—you would not have left Paris without a good reason. It was the only home you know. Did he break your heart, then?"

She had another rush of tears before she could tell him that no, she had broken her own heart. M. Lindstrom squeezed her fingers with all affection.

"My darling Christine. I know you don't want to hear it, but you _are_ young. One does recover from the youthful follies of the heart."

She did not tell him that she had and was instead suffering from something more. Perhaps he would not believe her. He spent the afternoon telling her stories of Papa, and even of her mother and herself as an infant, and it made her feel better.

The entire company was grouchy through February—there were a great many more loud parties downstairs, but Christine could not abide these. She drew her friend Axana into the bosom of the widows; they made a very merry group when they could all gather, and Christine quickly learned not to bet against Axana when they played cards. Still, when she was not with someone else, she was extremely bad-tempered. She spent a good deal more time than was healthy stomping about the theater. When she realized that this was just what Erik used to do, she laughed at herself and felt better for a while.

Toward the end of the month she was feeling a little more cheerful—rehearsals were coming in just a few weeks, and there were more hours of daylight. She was looking forward to working hard again. She took a walk about the theater, and not even to stomp, but just to think. Downstairs by the practice room, she heard M. Peña at the pianoforte, playing a deeply beautiful song. She could not resist it and crept in to listen better. He looked up with his barely-smile.

"That's beautiful."

"Isn't it? I just bought it, and I've been playing them for hours. They're songs for voice. Come sit and let me hear a real voice. I can't do them justice."

The words, in French, were just as lovely as the music. It was such a wistful song, about loving someone far away—just how she felt, and the beauty of it soothed her.

"Ah, wonderful. Try this one," M. Peña said.

The next song was just as good, about loving secretly, quietly, holding love in one's heart like a treasure. The melody and accompaniment were quite simple, so that nearly anyone would be able to make their way through it. It also happened to hit smack in the middle of her range, where her voice was best. She would definitely be singing these songs at her next recital.

"These are so beautiful," she said.

"Here—this is my favorite so far."

It was just a touch more difficult, more ornamented. Such grand sentiments; they eased her heart, to know that someone in the world felt just as she did, loving in silence from afar. Loving with no hope of its being returned, but without bitterness, thankful for it, even. And then, toward the end, the words, "my angel, angel of the music of my heart." She clapped her mouth shut. M. Peña looked at her.

"Who wrote this?" Her voice actually squeaked, and she could feel that her eyebrows were practically up in her hair.

"Someone I've never heard of," he said. "There was a whole stack of his works in the music shop. I've been playing them all day. These songs are evidently all the rage in Paris—and rightly so. Ah, here we go. Renouille. Is the name familiar?"

It wasn't, but her hand still shook when she reached for the book. E. Renouille. It couldn't actually be, could it? _Twenty-Six Love Songs._ She opened the cover, and in small type, just above the first staff, "for Christine."

M. Peña had not known his ingénue to be so emotional, so he sat and stared at her for a moment when she started to cry. His reserve seemed to quit him at her sobs, and he patted her hand with an expression of deep distress on his face as he asked her repeatedly what was the matter. Christine tried to compose herself, but each time she looked at the music, she sobbed again, until finally M. Peña went for help. Mlle. Schmidt and Axana led her upstairs without any questions. They washed her face, helped her off with her corset, and tucked her into bed.

After so many months, she felt it very strange to be dreaming again of labyrinths. She was annoyed by it and strode with purpose through the corridors as if she just where to go. At the center, she found what she was looking for.

In the morning, she woke too early to go to the music shop, but not too early to find M. Peña and apologize for her outburst.

"Are you feeling better, then?"

She assured him that she was. His black eyes were very shrewd.

"I had not noticed it before your reaction, but can I assume that you are the Christine to whom they are dedicated?"

"I believe that I am."

"And yet you were surprised?"

She nodded.

"Even the most intelligent of us can act like fools. Some day, when she knows you better, ask my wife about how she and I came to be married. In the meantime, would you like to borrow my score?"

"Thank you, no. I think I'd better buy my own."

She went to the music shop and bought a copy of each of his works. The shopkeeper said that the love songs in particular were selling quickly. Back in her room, she examined each score closely, leaving the love songs for last. Looking at them together, it was clearly Erik's work. He had said that he was writing, but nothing about publishing. Why would he not have told her? Then she noticed in the open score on her lap that it said "for C., with love" just above the first staff. She went through each of them—they all said the same thing, except for the love songs, which had her name spelled out.

The only thing that kept her joy from overwhelming her was her irritation. Was he ever going to tell her? Not, of course, that she had ever planned to tell him, so they might have gone their entire lives, both suffering quietly. Just as Mme. Giry had said back in Paris, they were each of them worse than the other.

She read through the songs, and she wept over them. There was such love in the words. She had given up hope, but he loved her. She had to sit up and clasp the pages to her chest. He loved her.

M. Eckman was a sentimental man. She had no duties for the next three weeks, until rehearsals for _Figaro_ began. So when she went to his office and said that she needed to make a short trip but that she would return in time to rehearse, she had a ready answer to his question as to what could be so important. She showed him the cover of the love songs and then their dedication. His eyes got very wide.

"And this is you?

"Yes."

"And this is what has been bothering you, the past couple of months?"

Apparently she was not as subtle as she thought.

"Yes sir."

M. Eckman grinned.

"Then by all means go, my dear. Be back on time for rehearsals, but be sure to come back happy."

She felt sure that she would. It all happened very fast—she got a train to France the next morning, and excitement warred with nervousness the whole way, except when she was annoyed at both of them for being so stupid. And underneath it all, the clacking of the wheels seemed to chant his name.


	54. Chapter 54

To be a working composer was a great gift. To be paid well for it was beyond comprehension. Erik's publisher was very pleased and sent a glowing letter with every check. As soon as he could afford to do so, Erik insisted on buying a proper pianoforte for Jean-Jacques.

"Given how often you'll be playing it, I accept," the organist said with a grin.

Erik experimented with not wearing his mask at home, which made him feel naked and exposed, although his face itched a great deal less. He took one of his spares and cut it down, so that it covered only the worst parts of his face. Mathieu approved, so he wore it around town one day and got a few more stares than usual, but nothing more. Mme. Benne had a great deal to say on the subject, all of which was shockingly forward, so he tried to not pay attention. He wished that he could write of these things to Christine. He did write of them to Giry, who sounded overjoyed at his good fortune. She agreed with the idea that a little sun might be good for him.

That was all well and good, but he was not going to spend the winter out of doors in the wind, except for his walks along the seashore or into town. He continued to write, of course. The publisher sent a note about the love songs so enthusiastic that it was barely legible. After that, the checks were larger and more frequent—apparently other people liked them as well. He was glad for this, but also a little wistful. He hoped that some day he would be able to show them to Christine—her voice would do the songs justice.

"Show them to her," Giry wrote. "Don't be an idiot."

Unless Giry knew something he did not, he had to disagree. He would not risk his friendship with Christine. He had already very nearly destroyed everything—nothing would induce him to burden her. Especially now, given that her letters were so sad. It seemed the winter was hard on her, and he wished he could think of what to say that might comfort her.

There was not very much to write about—his days were so quiet. Composition was extremely interesting from the inside, but from the outside all he did was walk the beach, work at his desk, and sit by the fire stroking the cat. Aside from Christine's being so far away, he was content.

It was not often that anyone knocked at his door. Mme. Benne and Jean-Jacques both knocked in a purely perfunctory way before walking in—he found that he minded this less than he would've thought. In Mme. Benne's case, anyway, he didn't think he had any choice. So at the knock, he took a moment to see who would enter, but no one did, so he went to the door. Christine stood on the other side, with a thunderous look on her face.

The world flopped over on its back—he could feel his mouth hanging open. That she was standing on his doorstep was astounding. That she looked so angry frightened him. She held up the score of the love songs.

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

"I've ruined everything," he thought. "Again."

She glanced down at the music in her hands, and her mouth twisted. When she looked back up at him, her eyes were soft.

"They are for me, aren't they?"

His secret was out—he might as well be honest.

"Yes."

Then things got very strange, because before he had time to blink, she was in his arms, kissing him. Just as he had dreamed but had thought would never happen again, Christine was kissing him. Her mouth, pressed to his, tasting of heaven. She was like a whirlwind in his arms, pulling him tightly to her, her hands clutching at him, and her mouth, her sweet mouth, kissing him like she would never stop. After a moment, Erik's surprise faded and he gave himself over to her—he wrapped his arms fully around her and kissed her with a fervor to match her own. It was very nearly everything he had ever wanted.

Eventually she drew back. They were both breathing hard. Christine's eyes were huge and liquid, and Erik was acutely aware of his small bed just beyond the doorway.

"Why are you here?" he asked her, his voice hoarse.

She smiled at him and passed her hands over his head, through his hair.

"I love you," she said. So of course he had to kiss her again.

"And I love my songs," she said after a few minutes, which required more kisses.

The wind caught the open front door and it banged loudly; otherwise he might never have let her go. She had left a small bag on the step. He had a thousand questions to ask, but his heart was in his throat. Somehow, his music had found her, and she was here. She was here, and she loved him. She loved him, and it was like a miracle.

"Say it again."

She had been looking at his drawings pinned to the walls, but she turned to him with a smile.

"I love you, Erik. I love you."

How much happiness could one heart bear? He felt lightheaded.

"Christine."

Her mouth tasted gorgeous, and her neck was satin under his lips. When she sighed his name, he thought he could not pull her close enough, would never have his fill of her in his arms.

"How did this happen?" he asked after a long while, and she laughed.

"I hardly know," she said. She kept touching his face, even though he wasn't wearing his mask. Touching his face, gently and with no fear. She smiled at him. Christine was in his house, in his arms.

"I think I have loved you for years," she said, "without knowing it. Ever since I left Paris, I've done nothing but miss you."

Erik could only touch her cheek in wonder. She turned her head and kissed his fingers.

"That was why your letters seemed so sad?"

She nodded.

"But I couldn't tell you, because I had hurt you so badly. I thought you didn't love me anymore."

He gathered her close.

"My dearest." Then he had to laugh a little. "There are many letters I did not send you, for fear that I would offend you. Of course I love you. I have never stopped."

Then she wanted to see them. Her eyes widened when he pulled out the four little notebooks and handed them to her. He put Christine in his chair by the stove and went to put the kettle on. It all felt a little unreal. When he turned back to her, she already had tears in her eyes. The tea was forgotten; she reached for him, and then he was in the chair with Christine sitting in his lap, her head leaning against him, while she read all of the things he had not said to her.

He much preferred Christine in his lap to the cat. She was here, and she loved him. How many times would he have to tell himself before he believed it? For such a miracle, perhaps never. All day and well into evening she read the notebooks while he held her, and they laughed gently over them or she asked questions about what she read.

"This was what I wanted," she said at one point. "All those months, these are the letters I wanted. I wanted to know what you were thinking."

He kissed the top of her head. It was at this moment that Nisse wandered in and found her usual place filled. Christine cried out in delight and climbed down to introduce herself. After a few minutes, the cat allowed herself to be adored. She complained when Christine stopped scratching and climbed back into his lap.

"Sorry, little friend. He has more charms even than you," Christine said in Swedish, and he laughed. She looked up at him with a questioning smile.

"My inflection has been all wrong."

She grinned and snuggled delightfully against him. His left arm curved around her back to her hip, and his right arm lay over her legs. He could think of few things more wondrous, and most of those were entirely improper.

"Your Swedish has gotten very good," she said. "I'm proud of you."

And she loved him.

"You are the newest star of the Kungliga Operan," he said in that language. "I am proud of you."

She giggled and corrected his pronunciation. Then her face turned grave.

"It has been so hard," she said, "to know that I should be happy but not be."

"Do you regret going?"

He was glad that she shook her head.

"I know that it's what I needed to do. And I have friends now, even family. But my love, I have been miserable without you."

She laid her fingers against his cheek and smiled at him.

"You will not make me do without you anymore, will you?"

Erik caught her hand and kissed her fingers. Silly girl.

"I have already said it—anywhere you go, let me go too."

More kisses were necessary, after this. There could never be enough of them. As much as he had come to love this place, it would not be difficult to leave behind, not with a lifetime of Christine ahead of him. He did not deserve such joy, but he would try to do so. He would try to make up for the past. Christine in his arms. Her mouth moving against his own. He would get no writing done with her near, not if he was allowed to touch her, to kiss her. They were alone in his house by the sea.

When later they were lying close together on his bed, and she squeezed his fingers and shook her head as he reached for the neck of her gown, he tried not to be disappointed. She drew him down for a slow kiss.

"Patience, my love," she said. "I'm going to make you marry me."

Erik smiled over a heart full to bursting.

"If I must."

Her wriggle of laughter was maddening. This inspired in him the most marvelous idea. So it was that they walked to town in the darkness and woke Jean-Jacques, who seemed not one bit surprised that a real person had inspired Erik's songs, and then the priest. He was thankfully not so put out as to refuse a midnight marriage rite. As they walked back up the coast, hand in hand, Erik kept trying to tell himself that he was not asleep, that the dreams of all his long years of despair had indeed come true and she was his forever.

"How am I to believe this?"

She stopped and faced him, a mass of light and shadow in the moonlight.

"I will remind you every day."

There was no music so beautiful as that playing in his heart when Christine kissed him.


	55. Chapter 55

The Kungliga Operan did not acquire a ghost. Christine Daae (who kept her maiden name for the stage) brought her new husband, the composer Erik Renouille, home to Stockholm in the winter of 1872, and they began their long artistic partnership. Her Susanna that spring was a great success, and people are still talking about her performance of _Twenty-Six Love Songs_ at the Midsummer gala. She had a long and celebrated career at the Operan, with only two short breaks.

M. Renouille was never one for society, owing to his disfigurement in a childhood accident, but he was well loved by those whom they admitted into their family circle. Besides this, he carried on a wide and faithful correspondence with a great number of people; his collected correspondence shows him to have been a man of great intelligence and wide-ranging interest. Indeed, after he designed the house that he and his wife lived in for most of their lives, he was almost as sought after as an architect as he was a composer. His _Mass for the Sea,_ written for the cathedral at Boulogne-sur-Mer, is thought by many to be among his masterpieces. Those who heard Mlle. Daae sing it in the cathedral at its premiere said that they were forever changed.

Family stories say (and her own, smaller, collected papers verify) that Mlle. Daae complained cheerfully over _Thirty Lullabies for Gustave_ and even more over _Forty-Two Lullabies for Anika._ But anyone who cares to examine the vast collection of M. Renouille's papers in the Kungliga Biblioteket will see that each of his works—musical, architectural, and literary—bears the same dedication: "To Christine, with love."

* * *

I know, I know: you're thinking, "where's the hot action?" I too was surprised that it didn't turn up. I hope you're not disappointed. Thanks for coming along on the ride and for the support. It has meant the world to me. 

Owlet


End file.
